Iran slams US jailing of engineer for documents smuggling
The Iranian government has criticized a U.S. court's decision to sentence an engineer with dual citizenship to more than eight years in prison for trying to send sensitive military documents to Iran, the official IRNA news agency reported Sunday.
IRNA quoted Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham as saying "the sentence for Mozaffar Khazaee is totally unfair."
Khazaee was sentenced Friday to more than eight years in prison and ordered to pay a $50,000 fine for trying to send hundreds of sensitive U.S. military documents to Iran as he applied for teaching jobs at state-run universities there.
He was accused of seeking to export 1,500 documents containing trade secrets and 600 documents with sensitive defense technology. Prosecutors said Khazaee stole and shared with contacts in Iran materials related to the Air Force F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, the F-22 Raptor and other U.S. military jet engine programs.
