Military Contractor Sentenced for Possession of Child Pornography in Baghdad

(Alexandria, Virginia) –Ahmed Hasan Khan of Woodbridge, Virginia, was sentenced by United States District Senior Judge Claude M. Hilton to 41 months in prison for possession of child pornography. Mr. Khan collected child pornography from the Internet while employed as a civilian contractor accompanying U.S. Armed Forces at the Baghdad Central Confinement Facility, Baghdad, Iraq, in violation of federal law. Chuck Rosenberg, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, made the announcement.

According to court documents, in November 2005, the network administrator at the Baghdad Central Confinement Facility, Abu Ghraib, Iraq, noticed that Khan’s personal computer was accessing child pornography on the Internet. Subsequent investigation revealed that Khan had more than 150 images of child pornography stored on his personal computer. The child pornography images included pictures of prepubescent children engaging in sexually explicit conduct. Khan was prosecuted in the Eastern District of Virginia under the authority of the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act.

In February 2006, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales created Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from online exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys Offices, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit http://www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

The investigation was conducted by the United States Army Criminal Investigations Command, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant United States Attorney Gerald J. Smagala prosecuted the case for the United States.

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