Nozette: Threat to America

Washington, Oct. 21 (AP): The assistant US attorney yesterday declared that the scientist, who allegedly tried to sell classified information to Israel, had tried to share some of America’s most guarded secrets.

Arrested in an FBI sting operation, Stewart David Nozette, who played a key role in the Chandrayaan-1 moon mission, was jailed without bond and accused in a criminal complaint of two counts of attempting to communicate, deliver and transmit classified information.

In Bangalore, the Indian Space Research Organisation today said Nozette’s arrest was “no reason for concern” as it had followed all security protocols.

Had Nozette succeeded in passing classified information, he would have done grave damage to America’s security because the information he possesses includes “some of our most guarded secrets”, assistant US attorney Anthony Asuncion said in court. He did not elaborate.

Nozette, looking dishevelled after spending the night in jail following his arrest on Monday, gave his name to US magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson, but otherwise he did not speak.

If convicted, the 52-year-old scientist most likely would have to spend the rest of his life in prison and there is a substantial risk that he would flee now if allowed to remain free, the federal prosecutor told the magistrate. The next court proceeding in the case was scheduled for October 29.

In an interview, Scott Hubbard, a former colleague, said that Nozette was primarily a defence technologist who had worked on the Reagan-era Star Wars effort formally named the Strategic Defence Initiative.

“This was leading edge, department of defence national security work,” said Hubbard, a professor of aerospace at Stanford University who worked for 20 years at Nasa.

Hubbard said Nozette worked on the Star Wars project at the energy department’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.