Another Man Charged With Secretly Aiding Saddam Hussein

Federal authorities yesterday charged an Iraqi-born man who allegedly worked at Iraq's embassy in Washington with secretly providing information to the regime of Saddam Hussein, the second such case to come to light in recent days.

Mouyad Mahmoud Darwish, a Canadian citizen, was allegedly paid -- authorities did not say how much -- for providing information to the Iraqi intelligence service.

In one instance, before the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Darwish reported that Iraqi volunteers were being trained in Virginia by the U.S. military, according to charging documents made public yesterday.

Darwish was charged by federal authorities in Maryland. The accusation against him comes a week after Saubhe Jassim Al-Dellemy, an Iraqi native and Maryland resident, pleaded guilty in federal court in Baltimore.

Neither man is charged with seeking or obtaining classified or otherwise secret information. Each is charged with conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, an offense that carries a maximum prison term of five years.

Darwish, 47, was detained Dec. 24 as he tried to enter the United States from Canada, where he has been living. He is scheduled to appear in court tomorrow in Buffalo.

It was unclear yesterday whether Darwish is represented by a lawyer. Federal authorities said Darwish lived in Maryland, but they did not say where or for how long.

Darwish and Dellemy are among at least 16 people who have been charged as a result of an investigation undertaken by the FBI using documents recovered in Iraq after the U.S. invasion in 2003.

The U.S. attorney's office in Maryland declined to comment on whether the two Maryland cases are connected. The charging document filed yesterday against Darwish suggests at least one possible link.

According to an affidavit signed by FBI Special Agent Donald E. Lichay, a confidential informant told investigators that Darwish worked as a cook at a restaurant in Laurel.

Dellemy operated a restaurant in Laurel that was a gathering place for Iraqis, according to charging documents in Dellemy's case. Dellemy used the restaurant's proximity to the National Security Agency to gather information about the U.S. government, according to the documents.

The affidavit against Darwish does not say he was working at that particular restaurant, which prosecutors have not publicly identified. Phone records link Dellemy to Gourmet Shish Kebab in Laurel, and an employee who answered the phone there last week said that Dellemy is the manager and that Dellemy's wife is the owner.

Dellemy's attorney declined to comment after his client's plea.

Files recovered in Iraq by the military and analyzed by FBI agents and translators indicate that Darwish was paid by the Iraqi intelligence service for "assistance," according to the affidavit made public yesterday. The documents indicate that Darwish was for a time an employee of Iraq's diplomatic mission in Washington, working as an assistant to the accountant and as a driver, the affidavit says.

Although such employment would not have necessarily been illegal, Darwish did not have the appropriate authorization from the U.S. government, according to the charging documents. Prosecutors could allege that his failure to obtain such authorization was part of a conspiracy to act as a foreign agent.

For more than a decade after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Iraq and the United States had no formal diplomatic relations. Iraq was represented in Washington by the Iraqi Interests Section, which is where Darwish initially was employed, beginning about 2000, according to authorities. In December 2003, full diplomatic relations were restored.

In January 2004, Darwish, then working for the embassy, was asked by a co-conspirator to destroy certain diplomatic files that linked the co-conspirator to the Iraqi diplomatic mission, according to the charging documents. Darwish discovered that the files had already been destroyed and reported that to the co-conspirator, according to the charging documents.