A former CIA officer who became a focal player in the debate over waterboarding as an interrogation technique was indicted on Thursday on charges he leaked classified secrets to journalists, including the role of an associate who participated in a covert mission to track down a top al-Qaeda figure.
The indictment of John C. Kiriakou, returned by a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, is part of an aggressive Justice Department crackdown on leakers and is one of a half-dozen such cases opened during the Obama administration.
The five-count indictment charges Mr. Kiriakou, 47, who was arrested in January, with divulging to journalists including a New York Times reporter the role of an associate who participated in the capture of suspected al-Qaeda financier Abu Zubaydah in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The officer’s participation in that mission was classified.
The indictment also accuses Mr. Kiriakou of separately disclosing a covert officer’s name to an unidentified journalist. The government began investigating after information about that officer appeared in a sealed legal brief submitted by lawyers representing a detainee at Guantanamo Bay. Authorities say the journalist passed on the officer’s name to a defense team investigator. The defense lawyers are not alleged to have done anything illegal
Mr. Kiriakou, who is free on bond, is scheduled to be arraigned April 13 in U.S. District Court in Alexandria.
Authorities say Mr. Kiriakou denied to FBI agents that he had leaked the information and answered “Heavens, no” when asked if he had provided Zubaydah’s name to a reporter. They say he lied about his actions in an effort to convince the CIA to let him publish a book, “The Reluctant Spy- My Secret Life in the CIA’s War on Terror.”
The indictment includes one charge of making false statements, which carries a maximum five-year prison sentence, and four counts of violating either the Intelligence Identities Protection Act or the Espionage Act each punishable by up to 10 years.
Mr. Kiriakou received public attention for his statements on water boarding, which he called an “unnecessary” form of interrogation during a 2007 interview with ABC. Mr. Kiriakou said the technique had been used effectively to break down Zubaydah, who was water boarded 83 times, and had been justified in the months after Sept. 11. But he also appeared to express misgivings about whether the harsh interrogation method was still appropriate.
“(W)e were really trying to do anything that we could to stop another major attack from happening,” Mr. Kiriakou said. “I don’t think we’re in that mindset right now. ... And, as a result, water boarding, at least right now, is unnecessary.”
Robert Trout, one of Mr. Kiriakou’s lawyers, declined to comment on Thursday. But another of his lawyers, Plato Cacheris, said in January that the charges criminalized routine conduct between journalists and their government sources.
The Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower protection organization, blasted the indictment the sixth criminal leak case opened under the Obama administration
Jesselyn Radack, the organization’s national security and human rights director, said the Justice Department was punishing a whistleblower under a law intended to prosecute spies and that Mr. Kiriakou was being targeted partly because of his public statements questioning the use of water boarding.
“Back when no one was saying anything, back in 2007 when we were arguing about the validity of water boarding, he was the only CIA official to say water boarding was torture,” she said.
