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WASHINGTON — A former National Security Agency employee convicted of selling defence and communication secrets he gained during his career is to be released from federal custody 30 years after his arrest.

Prison records show the sentence for cold-war spy Ronald Pelton, 74, ends on Tuesday. He was placed on home confinement several months ago to serve out the final stretch of his sentence, Ed Ross, a Bureau of Prisons spokesman, said.

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Pelton, a former NSA intelligence communications specialist, was arrested in November 1985 on charges of selling information to the Soviets about signals intelligence between 1980 and 1985 for $35,000 plus expenses. Prosecutors have said a Soviet KGB agent who defected tipped investigators to Pelton. The agent later returned to Moscow.

Among the secrets Pelton gave up was information about Operation Ivy Bells, an effort by the NSA and the Navy to tap Soviet communications cables that were laid under the ocean.