The court martial for a Navy officer accused of espionage has been pushed to March at the request of the defense, USNI News has learned.
Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin was scheduled to go to trial last week but his court-martial was postponed until March at the request of his defense team via a motion, a defense official confirmed to USNI News.
According to a report in The Virginian Pilot, “there was a need for additional pretrial hearings and for the defense to gather evidence. The court-martial is now scheduled to begin March 8 and last through March 24.”
Fleet Forces Command did not immediately respond to a request for additional information.
Lin plead not guilty to espionage charges in May which the military has accused of two instances of espionage, three instances of attempted espionage and several instances of mishandling classified information and failing to report contact with foreign agents.
He has been held in pre-trial confinement of the service since his arrest on Sept. 11, 2015 in Hawaii.
Before he was arrested, Lin served as a department head in one of the service’s most secretive units, Special Projects Patrol Squadron Two ‘Wizards’ (VPU-2). Lin was also likely aware of some of the Navy’s most sensitive programs during his time in Washington, D.C. working budget issues as a liaison to Congress.
While the government has classified much of the evidence against Lin, the few details that have emerged suggest the information involved were far less sensitive than what he could have divulged to foreign agents.
Lin, originally from Taiwan, joined the Navy in 1999 a year after becoming a U.S. citizen.
