US arrests man for passing secrets to Israel

The Daily Star

US authorities have arrested an American man on charges that he disclosed classified defense information, including on nuclear weapons, to Israel, the Justice Department said Tuesday. Ben-Ami Kadish worked as a mechanical engineer at a US Army weapons center in New Jersey when he provided the documents to Israel's consul for science affairs in New York over several years, the department said.


US authorities also accused Kadish of illegally acting as an agent for Israel from 1979 to 2008 without notifying the US attorney general's office.


The complaint alleges the consular official, identified in the indictment as "CC-1," gave Kadish lists of classified defense documents to obtain from the US Army's Armament Research, Development, and Engi-neering Center at the Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, New Jersey.


On numerous occasions between 1979 and 1985, the suspect took classified documents to his residence in New Jersey, where CC-1 would photograph them, prosecutors charged. One of the documents taken by Kadish "contained information concerning nuclear weaponry and was classified as 'restricted.'"


Kadish, who worked at the arsenal from 1963-1990, kept in touch with CC-1 via telephone and e-mail and met the consular official in Israel in 2004, authorities said. CC-1 left the US in 1985 and has never come back, authorities said.


Kadish was charged with conspiring to disclose documents related to the national defense to Israel and conspiring to act as an agent of Israel. He was also charged with conspiring to hinder a communication to a law enforcement officer and one count of conspiring to make a materially false statement to a law enforcement officer.