US Navy Engineer Guilty of Attempting to Pass Carrier Schematics to Egypt

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Former US Navy engineer Mostafa Awwad pleaded guilty to charges of attempting to provide schematics of the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford to Egypt, Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Carlin said in a press release.

“Awwad pleaded guilty to leveraging his position of trust within the Navy to share the schematics of the USS Gerald R. Ford nuclear aircraft carrier with what he believed to be a foreign government,” Carlin said.

Awwad began working for the US Department of the Navy at the Norfolk, Virginia Naval Shipyard in February 2014.

On September 18, 2014, an undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent contacted Awwad, who was a civilian general engineer in the Nuclear Engineering and Planning Department, and the two agreed for a meeting, according to the press release.

In the following days, Awwad expressed readiness to provide the schematics of the US military technology to the Egyptian government.

Awwad will be sentenced on September 21, 2015. Although the maximum penalty for the offense is life in prison, Awwad’s guilty plea reduced the punishment from between eight to 11 years, the Justice Department said.

Upon completion, the USS Gerald R. Ford will become the most advanced nuclear aircraft carrier in the world, with approximately 4,000 sailors on board, according to the press release.