Some in CIA want to re-hire top notch spy, despite lies about citizenship RAW STORY

Published: Friday November 16, 2007



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Print This Email This An illegal Lebanese immigrant did such a good job as a spy after lying her way into jobs with the FBI and CIA that there are calls within the intelligence agency to re-hire her, according to a new report. Nada Nadim Prouty pleaded guilty this week to fraudulently obtaining US citizenship and accessing FBI files on Hezbollah, which the US labels a terrorist organization. Un-named CIA sources tell the New York Daily News that Prouty worked for the CIA's Baghdad station sometime between 2003 and 2006, where she excelled at blending in with locals and breaking down captured al Qaeda "high-value targets." Prouty did such a good job with the CIA that some in the agency want her back, reports James Gordon Meek. "She was not only good at debriefing HVTs [high-value targets], she was able to pose as a native Arab and easily blend in," a source told the paper. Officials insist Prouty is not suspected of being a Hezbollah mole while working for the CIA. "There is no indication at this point that she was engaged in espionage" for Hezbollah while at the agency, a senior US official familiar with the case tells Meek. However there is some disagreement on this point. "Other knowledgeable sources are convinced otherwise," Meek reports. "Her brother-in-law is a fugitive Hezbollah fund-raiser who helped her lie to win U.S. citizenship seven years before she joined the FBI in 1999." "She scoured FBI files for his name, Talal Khalil Chahine," he continues. "She once worked for him in Detroit. Her defenders say she was rifling files out of worry for her sister, who married him in 2000." Meek provided more details about Prouty's alleged Hezbollah ties in an earlier article. "Allegedly a friend of top Hezbollah leaders, [Chahine] sent a letter to U.S. immigration officials in 1992 saying [Prouty's] sham marriage was for real," Meek reported. "Prouty used to wait tables in his La Shish cafes. In August 2000, Prouty's sister married Chahine. A month later the rookie FBI agent searched the bureau's Automated Case Support computer system for her name, her sister's and Chahine's." "FBI-agent-turned-Russian spy Robert Hanssen often did the same thing to see if the bureau was on to him," the reporter continued. "Prouty's sister joined her husband at a 2002 event in Lebanon, where Chahine gave a speech with Sheik Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, a Hezbollah spiritual leader designated by the U.S. as a terrorist. Fadlallah issued the fatwa blessing Hezbollah's 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, officials have said." Friday's article revealed the CIA fears Prouty would be assassinated for working with US spies if she is deported to Beirut, two sources told Meek. But once she was exposed as an illegal immigrant, the agency had no choice but to fire her. "You're supposed to be a saint before you join CIA - then you're trained to be a liar," an agency veteran told the reporter.



