Indian American engineer charged with selling top secret info

An Indian-American engineer, who helped develop B-2 stealth bomber technology, has been arrested and charged with selling top secret information to eight "foreign" countries.

Noshir Gowadia, 61, was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Maui, Hawaii, on Wednesday and is being held in federal detention centre in Honolulu.

His son, Ashton Gowadia, who came to Hawaii from California for Noshir's detention hearing, told reporters that charges were the result of "misunderstanding" and that his father is an "American hero" whose work has saved many lives.

Noshir was a design engineer for Northrop Grumman Corp for 18 years till 1986 and had worked on development of B-2, which has the capability of avoiding detection by radar.

He has been charged with selling top secret information to eight foreign countries, which have not been identified but a section of media suggested that China could be one of them.

Noshir is accused of selling "infrared suppression" technology, which allows the plane to dodge heat-seeking missiles -- a critical technology.

He allegedly faxed the details of the technology to a foreign country.

The prosecutors allege that Noshir had travelled abroad to train foreign nationals using the secret information and that "vast amounts" of classified data had been found on a computer seized from his home.

More than 14,000 files of concern to Air Force were found on one computer, Assistant US Attorney Ken Sorenson claimed.

Any "hostile" foreign government that obtains such material would get an invaluable jump in developing stealth aircraft of their own -- or in countering the advantage the US now has with its bombers -- and that could affect the balance of power in that part of the world, prosecutors argue.

"That has the potential to impact future conflicts, especially in places like the flashpoint between China and Taiwan."

In court documents, the government claims Noshir has told investigators he "disclosed classified information and material both verbally and in papers, computer presentations, letters and other methods to individuals in foreign countries with the knowledge that information was classified."