US federal prosecutors said Thursday they had arrested an American citizen on charges she acted as a spy for Iraqi intelligence.
An indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal court charged Susan Lindauer with acting as an unregistered agent of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) and engaging in prohibited financial transactions with the government of Iraq.
Lindauer, 41, allegedly made multiple visits to the Iraqi mission to the United Nations in New York from October 1999 through March 2002 and met with several IIS members.
The indictment noted that the IIS played a role in numerous terrorist operations, including the attempted assassination of former president George Bush.
Lindauer was arrested Thursday morning in her hometown of Takoma Park, Maryland, and was to be brought before a judge in Baltimore later in the day.
During her visits to the UN mission, Lindauer allegedly accepted various payments for expenses and in return for services provided in the course of her "ongoing intelligence relationship" with the IIS.
The charges also state that she visited Baghdad in early 2002 - a trip paid for by the IIS.
Lindauer's arrest followed an FBI sting operation, in which she was approached by an undercover agent posing as a representative of the Libyan intelligence service who was seeking to support resistance groups in post-war Iraq.
The indictment also alleges that in January last year, Lindauer delivered a letter to the home of a US government official detailing her access to members of the Saddam Hussein regime, "in an unsuccessful attempt to influence United States foreign policy."
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