Ben-ami Kadish
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Former US Army engineer charged on 22 April 2008 with supplying documents about nuclear weapons to the Israeli consulate during the early 1980s.
- Ben-ami Kadish was charged in U.S. District Court in Manhattan with four counts of conspiracy, including allegations that he disclosed U.S. national defense documents to Israel and acted as an agent of the Israeli government.
- Prosecutors say Kadish, a U.S. citizen who worked at an Army base in New Jersey, took home classified documents for six years and let the Israeli photograph them in his basement. Those documents included information about nuclear weapons, a modified version of an F-15 fighter jet, and the U.S. Patriot missile air defense system.[1]
Connection to Pollard case
- CC-1 (Co-conspirator 1) was an Israeli attaché to the NY consulate. He asked a Jewish American, Ben-Ami Kadish, to obtain documents from his place of work, the Army's Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center in Dover, N.J. Kadish's handler is the same man who handled spy Jonathan Pollard, who is now serving a life sentence.
- This hander is probably Yossi Yagur, a science attaché to the consulate at the time. The handler, the court documents say, left the U.S. in the year 1985, but did not abstain from contacting Kadish in the following years. The last documented conversation between the two was in March of this year.[2]
LAKAM
- Yagur worked in LAKAM, a scientific intelligence-gathering unit of Israel's Defense Ministry, and was posted as a science consul at the Israeli Consulate in New York.
- LAKAM was established to assist Israel in obtaining technology for the construction of the nuclear reactor in Dimona. It basically worked to "steal" defense technology throughout the world on behalf of Israel's defense industries. And its agents were basically disguised as consulate workers.
- Rafi Eitan, a former top Mossad official and today Pensioners Affairs Minister, was head of LAKAM at the time.[3]
Israeli leak claim
Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi has claimed that Kadish's name was leaked to the FBI by doves in the Israeli Government, to undermine the presentation to Congress of Israeli intelligence about an alleged nuclear reactor in Syria.
- It is believed that the “doves” in the Olmert administration who leaked the information are seeking to make a military confrontation more difficult and are hoping that negotiations, particularly with Syria, will instead take place. The revelation of more Israeli spying will also make it more difficult for Jonathan Pollard to be released from prison. There has been speculation that President Bush would pardon him before leaving office as a favor to Israel and the neocons. [4]
According to Giraldi the FBI is investigating other US citizens, including 'including an individual who held very senior security positions in the Clinton and Bush White Houses.'
References
- ↑ Army engineer charged with passing secrets to Israel in '80s, by Larry Neumeister, Associated Press, 22 April 2008.
- ↑ First notes on the newest case of an American spying for Israel, Rosner's Blog, Shmuel Rosner, haaretz.com, 22 April 2008.
- ↑ Analysis: Old affair will cause new damage, by Yaakov Katz, Jerusalem Post, 23 April 2008.
- ↑ Israeli Spy Case Will Name More Spies, by Philip Giraldi, The American Conservative, 23 April 2008.
