-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! Friday July 6 1:55 PM ET Ex-FBI Agent Admits He Spied for Moscow By Sue Pleming ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Reuters) - Ex-FBI (news - web sites) agent Robert Hanssen (news - web sites), one of the most damaging spies in U.S. history, pleaded guilty on Friday to selling secrets to Moscow and promised a full account of his actions after prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty. Hanssen, looking gaunt and pale and dressed in green prison overalls, appeared in a packed high-security courtroom in the Washington suburb of Alexandria, Virginia. Asked how he pleaded, he said in a strong, clear, voice: ``Guilty.'' Sentencing of the 57-year-old Hanssen, who according to his lawyer felt remorse and wanted to make amends for his actions, was set for Jan. 11. Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson told reporters later: ``Under this plea agreement, Hanssen will spend the rest of his life in federal prison, with no possibility of parole. Hanssen betrayed the trust of his country at the highest level imaginable, and today's plea ensures that he will be held fully accountable.'' Hanssen, who worked in counter-intelligence, allegedly gave Moscow names of double agents and was also accused of compromising secrets related to satellites, early warning systems, defense systems and communications intelligence. He was arrested on Feb. 18 after dropping off a bundle of classified material at a site near his home in a suburban Virginia park to be picked up by his Russian handlers. FBI agents filled the first two rows of the court room to watch their ex-colleague plead guilty to 13 counts of ''substantive acts of espionage'', one count of attempted espionage and another of conspiracy to commit espionage. ``I wanted closure in this whole thing. I had to see this for myself. Hanssen is a much hated man,'' said one agent, who refused to give his name. NO CHANCE OF PAROLE Under the plea deal, Hanssen, a father of six, will serve life in prison without the possibility of parole, most likely at a high security facility in Pennsylvania. His arrest prompted a reevaluation of security within the FBI, including an order for 500 agency employees with access to intelligence information to undergo lie detector tests. In the wake of his arrest, Washington also ordered 50 Russian diplomats withdrawn from the United States and Moscow retaliated by ordering 50 Americans out of Russia. Under the plea agreement, Hanssen will submit to ``full debriefings by the United States Intelligence Community'', enabling the U.S. government to assess the scope of his spying activities and the damage caused to his country. Randy Bellows, one of the chief prosecutors, said the value of the debriefings would be ``enormous'' for the government. ''This case could hardly be more troubling and it involved an extraordinary betrayal of trust,'' said Bellows. Hanssen's lawyer Plato Cacheris told the judge Hanssen began spying in 1979, just three years after he became a special agent, and over the next 20 years spied intermittently for Moscow, providing ``sensitive and classified information.'' He also told the court his client had a premonition on the day he was arrested that he was about to be caught, but had gone ahead with the drop-off of classified documents anyway. Cacheris told reporters outside the court later that Hanssen, who dropped his plans to plead innocent after months of negotiating over possible pursuit of the death penalty, said he now wanted to make amends for his actions. SPY FEELS REMORSE Asked if Hanssen felt remorse, Cacheris said: ``Yes. He very much wanted to make amends. That's a big reason for this disposition today.'' He added: ``And he wanted to tell his former agency what he had done and how he had done it. That is matters of interest to them.'' U.S. Attorney Kenneth Melson told a news conference that Hanssen had betrayed his country and his fellow Americans ``for no other reason than greed.'' Hanssen agreed to forfeit up to $1.4 million in assets paid to him or put aside for him by the Soviet union and its successor, the Russian Federation. Hanssen's wife will be eligible a portion of his pension as long as she continues to cooperate with authorities. In addition, the authorities will not seize the family home in Virginia or their vehicles. Hanssen's wife was not in the courtroom but Cacheris said his family stood by and that his wife had not wanted to face a barrage of television cameras so stayed away from the court. *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists! <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. 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