A Navy petty officer was sentenced to 12 years in prison yesterday with an additional 13 years suspended for giving a foreign government a secret manual for the Tomahawk missile system. He told authorities he tried to trade the information for asylum, the Times Dispatch website reported.

Russian media reported that one of the countries behind the spy scandal is Russia. According to the court verdict, Ariel J. Weinmann met with Russian security agents in March 2005 in Bahrain, then in October 2005 in Vienna and in March 2006 in the city of Mexico, Newsru.com website reported.

A 22-year-old fire control technician on the submarine Albuquerque, had pleaded guilty to espionage, desertion, theft and destruction of government property and other offenses on Monday, the day of his scheduled court-martial at Norfolk Naval Station. Before the plea, he had faced a potential sentence of life without parole.

The military judge who heard testimony in the case, Capt. Daniel O’Toole, sentenced Weinmann to 25 years in prison, said Navy spokesman Ted Brown. But under the plea agreement, Weinmann will serve no more than 12 years, with the rest suspended, Brown said. Weinmann also will get credit for the eight months he has spent in the brig awaiting trial.

Under military law, the judge was required pass sentence without knowing details of the plea agreement. Had the judge pronounced a sentence lighter than the agreement called for, Weinmann would have received the lighter sentence.

Where Weinmann will serve his sentence is unclear, Brown said.

The case left undisclosed many key facts, including how much harm Weinmann’s acts caused, and the name of the nation who which he gave the secrets. CNN has reported the nation is Russia.

Testimony suggested that Weinmann became disillusioned with the routine of Navy life and decided to flee the service and the country. Weinmann told O’Toole he copied various classified documents off the sub’s computer onto a laptop and then stole the laptop, thinking the information was valuable enough to buy him asylum in another country.

He deserted the submarine in July 2005 and flew to Vienna, Austria, where in October he rang the bell at the embassy of “Country X,” and presented an official inside with a binder full of secret documents, including the Tomahawk manual, he said. Apparently he failed to strike a bargain..

In March, Weinmann said he fled Vienna after first destroying the laptop’s hard drive and leaving most of his belonging behind to give the impression he still lived there. He was arrested on March 26 at the airport in Dallas, trying to clear U.S. customs after a flight from Mexico City. At the time, the Navy was not aware he had passed secrets and sought him only for desertion.

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