In a case which bared weaknesses in the US vetting of staff for its key law enforcement and intelligence agencies, Nada Nadim Prouty, 37, also pleaded guilty to having illegally obtained from FBI computers information on her relatives and Hizbullah, branded a terrorist group by the U.S. government.

According to a Justice Department statement on the case, filed in Detroit, Michigan, Prouty was helped in gaining U.S. citizenship by former Detroit restaurant owner Talal Khalil Chahine, her sister's husband who is now wanted in the United States on tax evasion, bribery and extortion charges.

The statement linked Chahine, now a fugitive believed in Lebanon, with Hizbullah leader Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, designated by Washington as a "global terrorist."

According to the statement, Prouty defrauded the United States by paying an unemployed man in 1990 to marry her after her student visa ran out. She then used the marriage to obtain US citizenship in 1994, and a year later divorced her husband.

In April 1999 she was hired by the FBI to work in its Washington office as a special agent working on crimes against U.S. citizens overseas.

The charges said that in 2000 and 2003 she probed FBI computers for records on herself, her sister and Chahine, and on a Detroit FBI investigation into Hizbullah.

She left the FBI in 2003 to join the CIA, from where she resigned earlier this month.

The statement said that she had agreed to cooperate fully with prosecutors as a part of a plea agreement.

The most severe charge, naturalization fraud, could bring up to 10 years in prison and a 250,000 dollar fine, as well as removal of her citizenship.

"This case highlights the importance of conducting stringent and thorough background investigations," said U.S. Attorney Stephen Murphy.

"It's hard to imagine a greater threat than the situation where a foreign national uses fraud to attain citizenship and then, based on that fraud insinuates herself into a sensitive position in the U.S. government."(AFP) 

Beirut, 14 Nov 07, 10:39

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