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U.S. Spy Sentenced To Life In Prison, Avoids Death Penalty
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Robert Hanssen
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ALEXANDRIA, Virginia, May 10 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Convicted spy Robert Hanssen, the disgraced former FBI counterintelligence expert who passed U.S. secrets to Moscow for some 20 years, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole at a federal court here Friday.
U.S. District Court judge Claude Hilton handed down the verdict, which stopped short of a death sentence as a part of a plea bargain made by Hanssen last year.
According to U.S. law, any person found guilty of treason could face a death penalty sentence. As a part of the plea bargain deal, Hanssen’s wife, Bonnie, was granted the right to a part of her husband’s government pension.
"I'm ready to accept the sentence of this court," Hanssen said. "I apologize for my behavior. I'm ashamed of it."
Hanssen thanked his family, friends and attorneys for "their support, generosity, goodness and charity."
"I've hurt them so deeply," he said.
Hanssen pleaded guilty in an Alexandria, Virginia federal court last July to espionage and conspiracy charges that could have carried the death penalty.
He is believed to be the most damaging mole ever to pass U.S. secrets to a foreign government, with thousands of classified U.S. documents handed over to the Soviets, and later to the Russians, in exchange for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds.
Hanssen was believed to have even passed on nuclear plans to Russia on how the U.S. would react in case of such an attack - in addition to participating in eavesdropping surveillance and interception of communications.
A 25-year employee of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Hanssen managed to walk out of the FBI building in Washington with documents and computer disks containing damaging top-secret information, and to peruse the FBI's major investigative database at will.
Hanssen served as the FBI’s liaison to the State Department Office of Foreign Missions (OFM) “and was primarily responsible for keeping track of intelligence agents assigned to work in the United States ‘under diplomatic auspices,’” CNN reported.
Prosecutors have said that the former FBI agent, a devout Roman Catholic and father of six, was a meticulous double agent so secretive he never met his Russian handlers and they never knew his real identity.
It is believed that Hanssen seriously compromised U.S. national security. He also gave the KGB information on Russian double agents working for the United States.
An internal report on the Hanssen debacle released last month by William Webster, a former director of both the FBI and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), found a top-to-bottom collapse in the FBI's security operations and urged sweeping changes.
FBI officials failed to recognize a number of potential red flags with regard to Hanssen, including the fact that he was living well beyond his means.
Hanssen's brother-in-law also informed the bureau that he suspected Hanssen of spying, but he was not taken seriously. Hanssen ultimately was caught only with help from a Russian defector.
Since the spying revelation, the bureau has put new procedures and policies in place, including polygraph tests for employees with access to sensitive data and the installation of a new, harder to crack computer system.
The 28,000-person bureau also has established a separate division whose sole mission is security.
FBI officials said they will conduct more in-depth reviews of agents' financial dealings, and the bureau has also limited the number of officials with access to highly sensitive information.
Hanssen was arrested in February 2001, after leaving his final installment of documents in a "dead drop" in a Virginia park, just outside the U.S. capital
Under last July's plea agreement, Hanssen pleaded guilty to 15 counts of espionage in exchange for a prosecution agreement not to seek the death penalty, and promising his full cooperation with federal investigators.
U.S. intelligence officials were relieved by the plea agreement, which spared them the unhappy prospect of sensitive information being aired at a public trial.
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