Civilian Translator in Custody - Guantanamo Translator Arrested

[LastDemInIdaho]

Sept. 30— A civilian translator who worked at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp has been arrested, suspected of taking classified information from the camp where hundreds of suspects in the war on terror are being held.

Mehalba's arrest follows the recent detention of Army Muslim chaplain Yousef Yee and the arrest of an Air Force translator, amid suspicions they may have been spying for Syria.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/WorldNewsTonight/logan_arrest030930.html

[MaineDem]

1. Physician working as translator at Guantanamo prison facility ...

Physician working as translator at Guantanamo prison facility taken into custody

From the Boston Globe:WASHINGTON -- A physician working as a translator at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba was arrested Tuesday, authorities said, in the latest of a series of apprehensions that have raised questions about security at the center for terror suspects.

Dennis Murphy, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said the arrest came at Boston's Logan International Airport. A senior law enforcement official, discussing the case on grounds of anonymity, identified the suspect as Ahmed Mehalba. This source said that Mehalba had stopped in Boston on Monday after arriving on a flight from Cairo.

Agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement noticed documents that appeared to have come from the prison camp and that they suspected of being classified. The FBI was called in to interview Mehalba, who denied the documents were his, the official said.

http://www.boston.com/news/daily/30/guantanamo_arrest.htm

Knowing that there have been arrests why would this guy knowingly fly with suspected material? This sounds fishy to me.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. Actually interpreter

(spoken language), not translator (written language). The press gets this mixed up all the time. These are two different jobs.

[mainer]

2. Message to all Arabic speakers:

Come work for the U.S. Government! Do your patriotic duty! Then get arrested for it!

This is going to do wonders for translator recruitment.

[BQueen]

4. Could we use this opportunity

to remind them that of how many able translators they FIRED simply because they were homosexual?

(Not that I think these arrests aren't fishy - but it would be nice to put their tails in a crack both ways by saying they "invited" what they claim happened by firing "loyal Amurrians" just because they didn't like their sexual orientation?)

[7th_Sephiroth]

3. i think horrendous crimes are being comitted there

and anyone that appears to bee abiut to blow the whistle is getting arrested for it.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. I think you may be right

Wasn't one of the arrested interpreters trying to smuggle out CD-ROMs or something?

[Heddi]

7. dupe

dupe http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=140129