He was speaking just to promote peace

A second man, Zaheer Ahmad, was also charged. Prosecutors said he recruited people to act as straw donors who would give money to the Kashmiri American Council that really was coming from the Pakistani government. Ahmad is not under arrest and is in Pakistan, prosecutors said. Both men are U.S. citizens.

Prosecutors said the Kashmiri American Council was being run in secret by the Pakistani government. Fai coordinated his activities with his ISI handlers and often communicated in coded emails, the FBI said. Pakistani officials reviewed Fai's budget and told him what to do and with whom to meet.

"You are aware that we have been working together for the cause for over a decade now," Fai wrote in an email to a senior ISI official in 1995. "All these years, I have closely worked with you and others who came before you. It has taken us much time, energy, dedication, strategy and planning to achieve our common cause."

Fai, 62, appeared before a federal magistrate judge, who ordered him jailed until a detention hearing Thursday afternoon. Prosecutor Gordon Kromberg said Fai faces up to five years in prison if convicted.

A soft-spoken father of two, Fai is a leading voice in the debate over the future of Kashmir, the mountainous border area that India and Pakistan have fought over for years. He supports the pro-Pakistan viewpoint that Kashmiris should vote on whether to be part of Pakistan or India. India claims the territory as its own.

He is perhaps best known in Washington for organizing the annual Kashmir Peace Conference on Capitol Hill. The event is billed as an independent forum for Indian and Pakistani voices, but the Justice Department said the Pakistani government approved the speakers and gave Fai talking points to highlight. Photo galleries on the group's website include images of him alongside Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

Israr Mirza, the former president of the Pakistani Student Association at George Mason University, recalled hearing Fai speak at a February event his organization hosted on India-Pakistan relations.

"I don't see him as a spy or anything. He's an old gentleman," said Mirza, who has since graduated from George Mason. "He seemed like a very collected guy. He was speaking just to promote peace."