US Navy engineer ‘tried to pass details to Egypt’

Mostafa Ahmed Awwad, 35, arrested on suspicion of trying to give designs of new American aircraft carrier to Cairo

By AFP 6 December 2014, 6:33 am

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Illustrative: The guided-missile cruiser USS Cape St. George and the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln transit the Strait of Hormuz. (CC-BY SA 3.0/Official US Navy Imagery)

WASHINGTON — A US Navy civilian engineer was arrested Friday on charges of trying to steal schematics of a new nuclear aircraft carrier and have them sent to Egypt, the Justice Department said.

An undercover FBI agent posed as an Egyptian intelligence officer to snare Mostafa Ahmed Awwad, 35, from the state of Virginia, who is charged with two counts of attempting to export defense articles and technical data.

He faces a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on each count if convicted.

Awwad told the undercover agent – whom he believed was an Egyptian government official – that it was his intention to utilize his position of trust with the US Navy to obtain military technology for use by the Egyptian government, the Justice Department said.

That included the designs of the USS Gerald R. Ford nuclear aircraft carrier, which is under construction.