Alleged leak to Israel probed for a year

Charges could be brought in the case as early as this week, said two federal law enforcement officials speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. The case has taken so long in part because of diplomatic sensitivities between the United States and its close ally Israel, they said.

Although the informa|ion involved material describiog Bush administration policy toward Iran was described as highly classified, prosecutors could determine that the crime involved falls short of espionage and could result in lesser b}t still serious charges of mishandling classified documents, the officials said.

They said the still-classified material did not detail US military or intelligence operations and was not the type that would endangmr the lives of ]S spies overseas or betray sensitive methods of intelligence collection.

The target of the probe was identified by the two officials as Larry Franklin, a senior analyst in a Pentagon office dealing with Middle East affairs. Franklin, who did not respond to a telephone message left at his office Saturday, formerly worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Allegations of an Israeli spy at the heart on the Pentagon have the potential to cause major damage to the key relationship with the United States, with the impact of a previous espionage scandal still being felt two decades on.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office strenously denied any connection Sunday to the senior Pentagon official who allegedly passed secrets to Israel with the help of employees of a powerful pro-Israel lobby.

Israel pledged not to spy on the United States after the case of Jonathan Pollard, an intelligence analyst for the US Navy, who passed on thousands of secret documents in 18 months before his arrest in November 1985. Pollard was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987, but Israel only admitted that he was one of its spies 11 years later.

Danny Yatom, a former director of Israel's Mossad overseas intelligence agency, said that the scars left by the Pollard affair had still to heal.

"Since the Pollard affair we have strictly refrained from acting illegally vis a vis the United States. There are very severe instructions that are followed by the agency," Yatom, now an MP for the opposition Labour party, told AFP.