Ex-Army translator acquitted of being Iraq agent

DETROIT – A former U.S. Army translator has been acquitted of working as an agent of Iraq in the U.S., but convicted of making false statements to investigators.

A federal jury in Detroit returned the verdict Friday.

Issam "Sam" Hamama was charged with conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of Iraq in the 1990s and making false statements to investigators.

He was cleared of the conspiracy charge, but still faces up to five years in prison on three other counts.

In recent years, Hamama worked as a translator for the U.S. military in Iraq. The government didn't know he had contacts with Iraqi officials in the '90s until his name was discovered in documents seized during the war.

Hamama says he didn't consider Iraq to be foreign because he's Iraqi.