Ex-Iraqi Diplomat's Son Charged With Working as Illegal Agent

NEW YORK – A former Iraqi diplomat's son was charged Monday with illegally aiding several suspected spies, including one allegedly sent to the United States to kill a former Iraqi government official.

Raed Rokan Al-Anbuke, 28, was accused in a federal criminal complaint of working with five suspected Iraqi spies, two of whom worked as counselors to the Iraqi Mission to the United Nations and two of whom were Iraqi mission guards.

Al-Anbuke is a son of Rokan Al-Anbuke, a former deputy permanent representative to the Iraqi mission who worked covertly as an intelligence officer while he was in the United States, the government said in court papers said.

Raed Al-Anbuke was due in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Tuesday on his wartime espionage case. His lawyer, Gregory Cooper, did not return a telephone call.

The papers said one of the spies Al-Anbuke aided was a former counselor to the Iraqi mission who was sent to the United States to kill a former Iraqi government official. But there was no elaboration.

Prosecutors declined to comment on the case, said Michael Kulstad, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney James B. Comey.

In court papers, FBI agent Charles E. Berger said Al-Anbuke met with the FBI several times between July 2001 and January, discussing his contacts with members of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, the foreign intelligence arm of the Iraqi government.

The FBI said the intelligence service has played a role in terrorist operations, including a plot to assassinate former President Bush and attempted bombings during Operation Desert Storm.

The court papers said the intelligence service has located, intimidated and killed Iraqi defectors and dissidents living abroad.

Berger said Al-Anbuke admitted carrying out several tasks for Iraqi intelligence officers, including providing the location, employment and family status of four Iraqi expatriates.

Al-Anbuke already had been held since March 25 on immigration charges because he overstayed his visa after his father left the United States, authorities said.

In the court papers, Al-Anbuke was accused of having acted "unlawfully, willfully and knowingly" as an agent of Iraq without notifying Attorney General John Ashcroft. If convicted, he could face up to 10 years in prison.