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Naval officer may face spy trial
Suspected of passing secrets to China, Taiwan
By Dan Lamothe
Washington Post

WASHINGTON — A Navy officer is facing possible charges of espionage, attempted espionage, and patronizing a prostitute in a rare spying case involving an active-duty member of the US military.

Edward C. Lin, a naturalized US citizen from Taiwan, has been under investigation since last year on suspicion of providing secret information to China and Taiwan, US officials said.

When Lin was a Navy lieutenant, he was selected to speak to a group of people who were about to become citizens along with him at a ceremony in Honolulu. Lin and his family left Taiwan for the United States when he was 14, he recalled, and he needed a translator to help him register for school when he arrived.

‘‘I always dreamt about coming to America, the ‘promised land,’ ’’ Lin said, according to a Navy account of the December 2008 ceremony.

Lin is facing a military hearing that could lead to a court martial. It’s a steep fall for a man who has served on some of the Navy’s most advanced maritime surveillance aircraft.

An espionage conviction can carry the death penalty, though no American has been executed for spying since 1953, when Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were put to death for passing secrets to the Soviet Union about the atomic bomb program.

The Navy examined charges against Lin Friday in a preliminary hearing in Norfolk, Va., but provided little advance notice about it. Navy officials have declined to comment on the case. A heavily redacted three-page charge sheet states that the officer faces two specifications of espionage and three specifications of attempted espionage. He is accused of communicating secret information ‘‘with intent or reason to believe it would be used to the advantage of a foreign nation,’’ hiring a prostitute, committing adultery, and falsifying federal records about his travel.

The convening authority for Lin’s case is the four-star commander of US Fleet Forces Command, Admiral Philip S. Davidson, underscoring the seriousness with which the Navy is handling the matter. He could elect to send Lin to court martial for some or all of the charges he faces.

Lin’s service record states he enlisted in the Navy in late 1999 and was commissioned as a naval flight officer in 2002.