
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, August 5, 1993                   TAG: 9308050238
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

FBI CHARGES SECRETARY WITH ESPIONAGE

A State Department secretary stuffed her purse, plastic bags and rolled-up newspapers with thousands of secret documents - some detailing U.S. military operations in Somalia and Iraq - and turned them over to two African journalists, the FBI charged Wednesday.

Geneva Jones, a secretary at the State Department's Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs since 1989, was arrested by FBI agents as she left her job Tuesday night and was charged with espionage.

Two hours later, the FBI arrested Dominic Ntube, a promoter of African culture in Washington and the publisher of a defunct tabloid. Agents found several thousand secret State Department cables and 39 secret CIA documents in his Washington apartment.

Ntube, whom FBI agents had watched receive packages from Jones, was charged with receiving classified documents.

An FBI affidavit charged Jones with stealing 130 original classified cables on 16 separate dates.

The spy scandal came to the FBI's attention from two secret sources identified in court documents only as "sensitive source of proven reliability," which often refers to U.S. or trusted foreign intelligence agents.

Jones, a cables clerk with top-secret clearance, also is accused of passing sensitive information to Fabian Makani, founder and publisher of a monthly magazine called The African Mirror, the FBI said.

Makani is "probably the most active African journalist in Washington," said Sulayman Nyang, a professor of African Studies at Howard University. Makani is also an illegal alien from Kenya, the FBI said.

Makani did not answer calls to his home. Wire services reported that he was being questioned by the FBI but had not been charged.

FBI officials did not know exactly what Ntube and Makani did with the information.

However, 21 State Department documents marked "secret" and "confidential" were found at a command post abandoned by Charles Taylor, a rebel leader attempting to overthrow the Liberian government. Also found at the headquarters were faxed documents that the FBI traced to Ntube's Washington phone.

The FBI said Ntube and Makani were involved in the "same cause" - supporting the rebel force led by Taylor.

by CNB