A federal jury deliberated less than three hours Monday before convicting a suburban Arabic-language newspaper publisher on charges he acted as a secret agent of Iraq before Saddam Hussein’s fall.
The government alleged that since 1999, Palestinian-born Khaled Abdel-Latif Dumeisi provided information to Mukhabbarat, the Iraqi intelligence agency, about Hussein opponents living in the U.S.
Prosecutors said Dumeisi betrayed the U.S. out of admiration for Hussein’s support for the Palestinian cause and to get money for his cash-strapped publication, though he pocketed only a few thousand dollars.
Among the prosecution’s most critical pieces of evidence was a dossier recovered in Iraq after the war last year that showed the intelligence gathered by “Sirhan”–identified in the papers as the publisher of Al-Mahjer, the name of Dumeisi’s newspaper formerly based in southwest suburban Burbank.
A former high-ranking Mukhabbarat official, testifying under the alias of “Mr. Sargon” to protect him and his family, testified the dossier was an Iraqi intelligence file.
In closing arguments Monday, lawyers for Dumeisi blasted the government’s case, calling Sargon unreliable and questioning the dossier’s authenticity.
But after hearing six days of testimony and arguments, the jury convicted Dumeisi, 61, of four counts of failing to register as a foreign agent, conspiracy and perjury for lying in an immigration hearing and before a federal grand jury.
Following the verdict, U.S. Atty. Patrick J. Fitzgerald told reporters the conviction “sends an important message that people can’t come to our country and spy on fellow residents of our country.
“The Iraqi regime is not exactly a regime you would want having information on you if they considered you hostile,” said Fitzgerald, as Thomas Kneir, FBI special agent in charge of Chicago, stood at his side.
The conviction carries a maximum prison sentence of 25 years, though Dumeisi likely faces far less. U.S. District Judge Suzanne Conlon set sentencing for March 30.
Dumeisi has been in custody since his arrest in July.
Even Sargon questioned the extent of Dumeisi’s value to the Mukhabbarat, but evidence showed he provided Iraqi intelligence with surreptitiously obtained telephone records of former Iraqi Gen. Fawzi Al-Shammari, a key opposition leader, in order to identify his contacts here and abroad.
Al-Shammari had a romantic interest in a friend of Dumeisi’s, identified as Wafa Zaitawi, but after he broke off the relationship soon after meeting Zaitawi for the first time, Dumeisi prevailed on her to give him the telephone records. The Baghdad dossier showed that Dumeisi had passed the records to Iraqi intelligence, authorities said.
Prosecutors Victoria Peters and Daniel Gillogly said Dumeisi also produced news credentials for Iraqi intelligence officers to help them skirt a ban on traveling outside New York City.
A former associate also testified that Dumeisi once told him he published provocative stories to goad Hussein opponents into complaining to his newspaper–in the process revealing their identities. Dumeisi allegedly sent the sometimes-threatening recorded telephone messages to his contacts at the Iraqi mission to the United Nations, described by prosecutors as the headquarters for Iraqi intelligence in the U.S.
A search of Dumeisi’s Oak Lawn home last May turned up a scrap of paper that prosecutors said contained a crude code in Arabic for Dumeisi to communicate with Iraqi intelligence.
A former girlfriend, Kawther Jaber Al-Khatib, also testified that Dumeisi once produced a pen that he said he had gotten in Baghdad that was both a hidden camera and recorder.
Records found in the Baghdad dossier indicated Iraqi intelligence was considering paying Dumeisi a stipend of $500 a month for his assistance, according to the prosecutors.
Prosecutors also played a videotape of Dumeisi praising Hussein at a birthday celebration in the dictator’s honor at the Iraqi ambassador’s residence in New York in 2001. According to an English translation prepared by authorities, Dumeisi hailed Hussein as “our inspired leader” and praised Iraq for launching missiles against Israel during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
In closing arguments, John F. Murphy, one of Dumeisi’s lawyers, implored jurors not to hold his client’s “despicable” support of Hussein against him in deciding his guilt or innocence.
Murphy suggested that the Iraqis assisted Dumeisi with some money and a used computer to foster one of the few newspapers in America printing anything positive about Hussein, not to support a secret agent.
Murphy argued that prosecutors didn’t trust Sargon because they made him sign an agreement that he would not seek political asylum or U.S. citizenship while here for his testimony.
Noting that Sargon was released from military custody late last year, Murphy also questioned whether Sargon gave authorities just what they wanted to hear.
But who would be better to identify the Baghdad dossier than Sargon, a highly-placed Mukhabbarat official, Peters argued.
