A Syrian-born U.S. citizen from Virginia has been charged with spying for filming anti-regime protesters and providing material to intelligence agencies in a bid to silence the opposition, officials said Wednesday.

Mohamad Anas Haitham Soueid, 47, was arrested on Tuesday and is charged with conspiracy and acting as a Syrian government agent in the United States without notifying the U.S. attorney general as required by law, according to an indictment unsealed on Wednesday.

Soueid was also charged with two counts of providing false statements on a firearms purchase form and two counts of providing false statements to federal law enforcement.

But the Syrian embassy in Washington denied that the 48-year-old Mohamad Anas Haitham Soueid acted as a spy for the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, dismissing the allegations as “sheer lies.”

“Neither Mr. Soueid nor any other citizen of the US is an agent of the Syrian government,” the embassy said in a statement.

Soueid “has never provided any individual at the Syrian embassy in the U.S. with any information regarding US protesters or otherwise. This is a flagrant effort to defame the embassy of Syria based on sheer lies and fabrications,” the statement said.

If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison on the conspiracy and foreign agent charges, 15 years in prison on the firearms purchase charges and 10 years in prison on the false statement charges.

“Today’s indictment alleges that the defendant acted as an unregistered agent of the Syrian government as part of an effort to collect information on people in this country protesting the Syrian government crack-down. I applaud the many agents, analysts and prosecutors who helped bring about today’s case,” said Assistant Attorney General Lisa Monaco who announced the charge on Soueid.

“The ability to assemble and protest is a cherished right in the United States, and it’s troubling that a U.S. citizen from Leesburg is accused of working with the Syrian government to identify and intimidate those who exercise that right,” said U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride, who also announced the charge.

“Spying for another country is a serious threat to our national security, especially when it threatens the ability of U.S. citizens to engage in political speech within our own borders,” MacBride added.

Protest videos, audio recordings and coded messages
A statement issued by the Department of Justice read: “Under the direction and control of Syrian officials, Soueid is accused of recruiting individuals living in the United States to collect information on and make audio and video recordings of protests against the Syrian regime – including recordings of conversations with individual protestors – in the United States and Syria.

The United States has imposed sanctions on the embattled Assad and his government since the start of the crackdown that the United Nations estimates has killed at least 2,700 people.

Starting around March 2011, Soueid worked as part of a network of operatives in the United States, sending some 20 video and audio recordings of protests and conversations with protesters, according to the indictment.

In one instance, Soueid sent a coded message in April to the Syrian intelligence service via email that described a meeting of protesters in a Virginia suburb of Washington.

He also sent to his contact at the Syrian embassy in Washington a website link for protesters in the United States, the indictment said.

He also sent contact details including phone numbers and email addresses of the protesters, the charging document said.

He returned from his trip to Syria in July and was questions and searched at Dulles International Airport. That prompted him to tell his Syrian contacts that he had changed procedures and also said that the incident at the airport would not stop him, according to the indictment.

About a month later, Soueid was confronted by FBI agents but he denied collecting information and sending it to the Syrian government, according to prosecutors.

Rights group Amnesty International issued a statement applauding U.S. officials for acting on “the numerous credible allegations of abuse brought forward by Syrian activists” in the United States.

Amnesty’s Syria researcher Neil Sammonds told AFP that the arrest “sends a message that the Syrian government’s crackdown on opposition has its limits.”