Ex-US adviser arrested over secret documents

WASHINGTON:

A leading expert on US-India relations who has advised successive US administrations has been arrested and charged with unlawful retention of national defence information, including over a thousand pages of top secret and secret documents at his home, court documents showed.

Ashley Tellis, 64, who served on the National Security Council of former Republican President George W Bush and is listed in an FBI court affidavit as an unpaid adviser to the State Department and a Pentagon contractor, was arrested over the weekend and charged on Monday.

Tellis is also a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank. A State Department official confirmed that Tellis was arrested on Saturday, but declined to comment further. A Pentagon official said it does not comment on ongoing litigation.

His lawyer was not listed in the court documents and was not immediately known.