The Navy has charged an active-duty maritime reconnaissance policeman with passing U.S. military secrets to a foreign government, service officials told USNI News .On Friday, the service outlined several charges – espionage being the most unplayful — against an unidentified lieutenant commander during an Article 32 hear in Norfolk .
typically, as part of the military article 32 charging process, an accuse service member is identified in court-martial documents. But the military service is not releasing the information in this case because “ this has been designated a ‘ National Security Case ’, ” a Navy official told USNI News on Friday .
“ A ‘ National Security Case ’ is one which : to any unplayful degree, involves the compromise of a military or defense advantage over any extraneous nation or terrorist group ; involves an allegation of froward compromise of classified information, affects our military or defense capability to successfully resist hostile or destructive natural process, overt or covert ; or involves an work of terrorism, ” according to a manual of trying classified military cases.
Reading: Navy Charges Maritime Recon Officer with Espionage in Rare ‘National Security Case’ – USNI News
The cases are tried under an extra fixed of rules than normal courts-martial due to the sensitivity of the attest involved in the proceedings .
When contacted by USNI News, U.S. Fleet Forces spokesman Capt. Jack Hanzlik did neither exhaust the name of the policeman nor any other details of the character .
Another Navy official told USNI News, “ NCIS and FBI are calm investigating the details of this case and therefore we can not provide any extra details at this clock time. ”
Though heavily redacted — without dates or locations — the charging document spins a narrative in which the accused allegedly enchant secret data out of the state without license and then lied about his whereabouts when he returned to duty. The charging documents allege the O-4 successfully committed espionage twice and try espionage on three other occasions .
Service officials besides did not specify the state to which to which the military officer passed along the secrets or to which he traveled.
“ I could not tell you out of esteem for the ongoing probe, ” the official said .
In summation to the accusations related to transmitting secrets to a extraneous power, the officer was besides accused of violating military law by patronizing prostitutes and committing adultery .
The lieutenant commander is presently in pre-trial confinement at the Naval Consolidated Brig Chesapeake, Va. and is presently assigned to commander, Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, according to the service.
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Maritime surveillance is an increasingly authoritative national naval asset as potential U.S. adversaries like Russia and China have grown in military force and edification .
In the final several years the U.S. has introduced respective new aeriform surveillance platforms, notably the Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft and the unmanned Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton long-range surveillance aircraft. Both aircraft are samara to the U.S. military rebalance to the Western Pacific .
The last major incident of espionage by an active agent duty extremity of the Navy was the case of John Walker – a Navy justify policeman and submariner who for 18 years passed reams of military secrets to the Soviet Union before he was finally caught in 1985 .
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