Aging Spy Sees No End to His Imprisonment

Does this old spy they called the Meister have more traitors and moles up his sleeve? Or were his confessions genuine, and this dumpy, former East German agent knows no more than he has admitted of secrets stolen and sold during his decade plumbing U.S. military sources in Berlin?

Huseyin Yildirim, as he did in an interview with Life & Style in March, still insists he is empty of information. At 70 and fading, after eight years as prisoner of a Cold War that no longer exists, Yildirim says it is time he went home to Turkey, where he was born, and Germany where his children live.

And Jamie Nichols, the Santa Barbara attorney who has represented Yildirim on a pro bono basis for three years, still says the federal government is being unyielding, punitive and mean-spirited in not releasing his client from Lompoc Federal Penitentiary.

President Clinton and Atty. Gen. Janet Reno have not responded to Nichols’ letters. He has petitioned U.S. Pardon Atty. Margaret Colgate Love. One letter of acknowledgment, but nothing else.

Nichols contacted James Hall, the Army intelligence officer who was turned by Yildirim, arrested with him and sentenced by a military court to 40 years in prison.

“Hall totally ignored me,” says Nichols.

Nichols has visited Berlin and interviewed ex-spymasters of the disbanded East German intelligence service. They testified that Yildirim was small potatoes, and Hall the real traitor. And Nichols says he has asked Kate Alleman--an FBI agent who stays in contact with Yildirim--for a reason for holding the spy.

“They [the FBI] think it is not inappropriate for him to rot in prison,” says Nichols. “They say his work might not have caused physical harm to Americans, but he hurt a lot of Americans by contacting them, so that they lost security clearances and ruined their careers.

“I told her: ‘But that was his job, and we did the same damned thing.’ ”

If a pardon is not granted, says Nichols, he may seek a new trial based on a 1,000-page transcript indicating Yildirim did not receive an adequate defense.

“He’s not doing too well,” Nichols reports. “He is getting to very deep stages of depression, because every piece of information we get is negative. He feels there is no more hope. So I’m trying to prepare him for the possibility that he might die in a U.S. prison.”