Nozette’s Missing Thumb Drives Have Pakistan Nervous

Accused spy Stewart David Nozette in India.

An update on the Stewart David Nozette spy case from Talking Points Memo:

The spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy in Washington tells TPMmuckraker that it is watching the espionage case of Stewart Nozette closely following a report that the high-level U.S. government scientist traveled to India with two computer thumb drives in January.

“Definitely we have interest in the news,” said spokesman Nadeen Kiani. “The concerned desk officer is watching [developments].”

The embassy’s interest comes following the news that an unnamed “Country A” in the Nozette complaint, which alleges he sold classified info to an FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence office, was India.

Political sensitivity may explain why India was not identified in the criminal complaint — a sensitivity accentuated by Pakistan’s response to the news of the Indian connection.

Nozette was a co-investigator on a radar instrument supplied by the U.S. for India’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter. He allegedly threatened to flee to India or Israel if the U.S. government attempted to send him to jail on unrelated fraud charges to which he pleaded guilty.

Talking Points Memo reports that the Indian government is not commenting on the Nozette case, nor are the U.S. State and Justice departments. ISRO, the Indian space agency, has declared information about Nozette to be classified.

Read the full story. The website has more coverage of the Indian angle here as well.