A jury in March

for selling telecommunications equipment to Iraq under Saddam Hussein in 2003-03, a violation of a federal trade embargo.

But Emad al-Yawer, who worked as a middleman between the buyers and Hanna's Rochester-based company, says he initiated contact with Hanna under the instruction of the CIA.

In fact, he says the CIA was trying to purchase the equipment and then sell it to Saddam Hussein in order to spy on him.

Yawer

, saying he was willing to sacrifice his life to expose the injustice.

"All those people gave their lives, Americans and Iraqis and others. For what? So innocent people go to jail?"

During her trial, Hanna said she thought she was selling the equipment to a company in Turkey, which Yawer says he told her.

Hanna is currently serving her six-year sentence in a Kentucky prison, but her family has started a Web site to make a case for her release.

"As a father, my daughter is sitting in prison and it's like a part of me is gone." Hanna's father told the TV station. "I want my daughter back. That's all I'm asking for."

On the "

" site, you can read a statement by Yawer, a letter asking the judge to release Hanna based on the new evidence and a letter from the office of U.S. District Judge Marianne Battani saying she would not do so.

U.S. Attorney Terrence Berg

that "the jury concluded there was more than enough evidence to convict the defendant of violating the trade embargo with Iraq, that she had specific knowledge or that and her defense regarding Turkey was not true."

Prosecutors in the case say any new evidence is classified and under seal, but Hanna's attorney has filed an appeal.