Australian pleads innocent in spying case

Tuesday, June 1, 1999 | 9:33 a.m.

Jean-Philippe Wispelaere entered his plea through his attorney, Nina Ginsberg, who requested a jury trial. Wispelaere, wearing a green jumpsuit with the word "prisoner" stamped on the back, stood silently by his attorney's side during the 7-minute proceeding.

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III set a Sept. 13, trial date after Ginsberg waived Wispelaere's right to an earlier proceeding under the speedy trial act.

She said she needed the additional time to review classified documents for a "substantial inquiry into whether the information (Wispalaere is charged with trying to sell) could actually aid a foreign country or be harmful to this country."

The government said Wispelaere was paid $120,000 for nearly one thousand secret U.S. defense documents by undercover FBI agents who posed as foreign spies, lured him to Virginia and arrested him at Dulles International Airport last month.

Wispelaere, 28, is an Australian citizen whose last known address was in Australia.

On a single count of attempted espionage, he faces a maximum penalty of life in prison, or even death if certain conditions, like disclosure of nuclear secrets, are met.

Wispelaere worked for the Australian military intelligence from July 1998 until his abrupt resignation Jan. 13. The U.S. governemnt says that six days later he walked into the embassy of a foreign country, which the U.S. would not name, in Bangkok, and offered to sell classified U.S. documents. That country tipped off U.S. officials and FBI agents set up a meeting with him.

The FBI said he sold 713 classified U.S. defense documents, including photographs presumably from U.S. satellites, to an undercover FBI agent in Bangkok for $70,000. He also mailed more than 200 others to a post office box the FBI set up in Virginia for an additional $50,000.

The secret and top secret documents had been shared with Australia under U.S.-Australian defense treaties and the U.S. government said their disclosure could cause "exceptionally great damage" to U.S. national security.

Wispelaere was being held without bond.