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Monday, 10 January, 2000
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Scientist's Children Protest FBI Techniques
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20000109_1210.html
WIRE:01/09/2000 23:45:00 ET

 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The children of former
government  scientist Wen Ho Lee said Sunday
they were outraged by the FBI's  tactics in
trying to get their father to confess to
passing  classified nuclear information to
China.
Lee, a 60-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen
who was born in  Taiwan, was arrested on Dec.
10 and charged with illegally  copying U.S.
nuclear weapons data from classified computer
at  Los Alamos National Laboratory in New
Mexico.

Lee has pleaded not guilty to all 59 charges
against him. He  was not charged with espionage
and the government has  acknowledged it has no
evidence that any secrets were passed to
another country. If convicted, Lee could face
a life sentence.

In an interview with the "Newsstand" program
produced by  CNN and Time magazine, Alberta
and Chung Lee raised questions  about the way
FBI agents questioned their father last March.

Federal law enforcement officials Sunday
acknowledged that  FBI agents misled Lee into
believing he had failed a Department  of Energy
polygraph test as they pressed him to confess to
passing nuclear secrets to China.

He actually got an extremely high score for
honesty,  according to a report in The Washington
Post.

"COMPLETELY OUTRAGED"

"We are completely outraged," Alberta Lee told
CNN/Time.  "I can't believe the techniques they
used in this interrogation  to get my father
confess something he didn't do."

FBI spokesman Jim Davis declined to comment
specifically on  the report, but said the
government was confident it had a good  case
against We Ho Lee.

Law enforcement officials said agents often
misled suspects  about their polygraph results
in order to obtain confessions.

"There's absolutely nothing wrong with it, and
sometimes  it's the best way to obtain
information from somebody," said  one law
enforcement source.

Chung Lee also noted the agents' repeated
references to the  execution of convicted
spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

"The scariest thing is they keep threatening
him with  potential execution," Chung Lee told
CNN/Time.

Defense attorneys introduced the transcript of
the  interrogation at a bail hearing in late
December.

Both children insisted their father was innocent
of any  wrongdoing.

"He raised us to never ever break the law, break
the rule  or bend rules. He taught us never lie
or cheat or steal,"  Alberta Lee said. "Why would
he want to leak information to any  other country
when his children are Americanized, born here,
going to stay here?"

"Why would he want to ever do anything to harm our
livelihoods when he's invested his entire life in
raising us and  doing a good job raising us?"

REMAINS IN JAIL

Lee is charged with moving secret data from a
classified  computer at Los Alamos to an
unclassified system and then  copying it onto
portable computer tapes.

U.S. District Judge James Parker in Albuquerque,
New Mexico,  last month refused to release Lee on
bail. Parker ruled that  federal prosecutors had
proven that missing computer tapes  allegedly in
Lee's possession could pose a threat to national
security if Lee were to be released.

Lee maintained that he destroyed the missing tapes.
Prosecutors argued that he never has provided
evidence of the  destruction of the tapes and may
still have them stashed away.

Copyright �1999 ABC News Internet Ventures.
-------------------------------------------
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***
Mario Profaca, moderator
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]





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