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U.S. scientist's children protest FBI techniques
2000-01-11
WASHINGTON - The children of former government scientist Wen Ho Lee said Sunday they were outraged by the FBI's tactics in trying to get their father to confess to passing classified nuclear information to China. Lee, a 60-year-old naturalised U.S. citizen who was born in Taiwan, was arrested on Dec. 10 and charged with illegally copying U.S. nuclear weapons data from classified computer at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Lee has pleaded not guilty to all 59 charges against him. He was not charged with espionage and the government has acknowledged it has no evidence that any secrets were passed to another country. If convicted, Lee could face a life sentence. In an interview with the ``Newsstand'' programme produced by CNN and Time magazine, Alberta and Chung Lee raised questions about the way FBI agents questioned their father last March. Federal law enforcement officials Sunday acknowledged that FBI agents misled Lee into believing he had failed a Department of Energy polygraph test as they pressed him to confess to passing nuclear secrets to China. He actually got an extremely high score for honesty, according to a report in the Washington Post. ``COMPLETELY OUTRAGED'' ``We are completely outraged,'' Alberta Lee told CNN/Time. ``I can't believe the techniques they used in this interrogation to get my father confess something he didn't do.'' FBI spokesman Jim Davis declined to comment specifically on the report, but said the government was confident it had a good case against We Ho Lee. Law enforcement officials said agents often misled suspects about their polygraph results in order to obtain confessions. ``There's absolutely nothing wrong with it, and sometimes it's the best way to obtain information from somebody,'' said one law enforcement source. Chung Lee also noted the agents' repeated references to the execution of convicted spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. ``The scariest thing is they keep threatening him with potential execution,'' Chung Lee told CNN/Time. Defence attorneys introduced the transcript of the interrogation at a bail hearing in late December. Both children insisted their father was innocent of any wrongdoing. ``He raised us to never ever break the law, break the rule or bend rules. He taught us never lie or cheat or steal,'' Alberta Lee said. ``Why would he want to leak information to any other country when his children are Americanised, born here, going to stay here?'' ``Why would he want to ever do anything to harm our livelihoods when he's invested his entire life in raising us and doing a good job raising us?'' REMAINS IN JAIL Lee is charged with moving secret data from a classified computer at Los Alamos to an unclassified system and then copying it onto portable computer tapes. U.S. District Judge James Parker in Albuquerque, New Mexico, last month refused to release Lee on bail. Parker ruled that federal prosecutors had proven that missing computer tapes allegedly in Lee's possession could pose a threat to national security if Lee were to be released. Lee maintained that he destroyed the missing tapes. Prosecutors argued that he never has provided evidence of the destruction of the tapes and may still have them stashed away.
Fired nuke scientist to go on trial in November (2000-02-18)Wen Ho Lee's Attorneys Ask Court to Grant Him Bail (2000-01-19)U.S. scientist's children protest FBI techniques (2000-01-11)FBI Misled Fired Nuclear Scientist (2000-01-08)Judge Denies Wen Ho Lee Bail, Warns of `Enormous Harm' (1999-12-30)
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