WASHINGTON, May 5, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A US Defense Department analyst was arrested on charges of disclosing classified information on potential attacks on US forces in Iraq to an influential pro-Israel lobbying group in the United States.

Lawrence Franklin, who served on the Iran desk in the office of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, surrendered himself to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) Wednesday, May 4, on charges of passing on top-secret national security information to two employees of the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Agence France Presse (AFP) said.

“A criminal complaint filed Tuesday and unsealed this morning charges Franklin with disclosing classified US national defense information to a person or persons not entitled to receive it,” the US Justice Department said.

The criminal complaint and an accompanying FBI affidavit, filed in federal court in Virginia, said Franklin had lunch with the two individuals on June 26, 2003, at a restaurant in Arlington, Virginian.

“At the lunch, Franklin allegedly disclosed classified information designated ‘Top Secret’ related to potential attacks upon US forces in Iraq to the two individuals, neither of whom had the security clearance to receive that information,” the Justice Department said.

“Franklin allegedly told the two individuals that the information was ‘highly classified’ and asked them not to ‘use’ it,” it added.

Approximately 83 separate classified government documents were found during a search of Franklin’s home in Kearneysville on June 30, 2004, West Virginia, 38 of which were top-secret, according to an affidavit signed by FBI agent Catherine Hanna.

Franklin, 58, is facing a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for the charges, the department said.

The FBI affidavit said that a search of Franklin's office turned up a document classified “Top Secret/ SCI” (Secret Compartmentalized Information) from June 2003 that contained the information that the analyst has handed over, AFP said.

On that day, Franklin admitted in a voluntary interview with FBI agents on June 30, 2003 that he had provided top-secret information from the report to the individuals he met at the restaurant, the affidavit said.

The two individuals were not named in the court documents, but federal law enforcement officials said they were both senior employees that AIPAC dismissed last month – policy director Steve Rosen and senior analyst Keith Weissman.

Last month, AIPAC dismissed the two senior employees. At the time, the two denied through their lawyer having solicited, received or passed on classified documents.

“Steve Rosen never solicited, received, or passed on any classified documents from Larry Franklin and Mr. Franklin will never be able to say otherwise,” his attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement. Weissman’s attorney, John Nassikas, had no comment.

The FBI affidavit also said that Franklin disclosed, without authorization, classified US government information to a foreign official and members of the news media on other occasions. It, however, declined to give further details.

A Pentagon spokesman said before Franklin turned himself in to the FBI, he had worked on projects that did not involve access to classified information in the office of Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, a leading neo-conservative who has long history of close ties with Israel.

“Israel will not do anything to harm those relations,” Shalom said.

But Israel denied Thursday, May 5, receiving any top-secret US government information from the arrested Pentagon expert.

“Israel considers this arrest as a non-issue. We have no involvement and we have not received any document from this person,” a senior foreign ministry official told AFP.

“We have excellent cooperation with the Americans at all levels and we have no need of documents of the sort that were in this person's field,” the foreign ministry official said.

“It is possible that he has passed on a document of which we are ignorant to other Americans.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom also denied any Israeli involvement in the issue.

“Israel will not do anything to harm those relations. Anyone who imagines that we were involved in this affair is mistaken,” Shalom was quoted by the Yediot Aharonot as saying.

Israel pledged not to spy on the United States after the case of Jonathan Pollard, an intelligence analyst for the US Navy, who passed on thousands of secret documents in 18 months before his arrest in November 1985.

Pollard was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987, but Israel only admitted that he was one of its spies 11 years later. It has since lobbied Washington to grant him a pardon.