http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/567970.html
Last update - 10:53
21/04/2005
Report: AIPAC sacks two senior employees over spy scandal
By Haaretz Service
The American-Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has fired two of its senior officials involved in an
investigation over possible spying for Israel in the United States,
the New York Times reported Thursday.
The pro-Israel lobby
dismissed its policy director Steve Rosen and its senior Iran analyst
Keith Weissman, who had both been previously suspended for the duration of the
investigation.
The FBI investigation
started last year after suspicions arose that Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin
transferred classified information about U.S. policy on Iran to members
of AIPAC.
AIPAC, whose ties with the
U.S. administration were badly hurt,
is apparently trying to distance itself from the on-going FBI investigation. In
December, FBI agents raided the AIPAC offices and issued subpoenas to four top
executives who were later questioned at length.
Sources close to the
investigation suggested in the past that it would end in a plea bargain.
Franklin would
plead to a lesser crime of unauthorized transfer of information, Rosen and
Weissman would be charged with receiving classified information unlawfully, and
AIPAC would remain unstained.
AIPAC is considered one of
the five most powerful lobbies in Washington, alongside giants like the American
Association of Retired Persons and the National Rifle Association, whose budgets
dwarf AIPAC's.
