Washington ? The Justice Department will seek the death penalty for Brian P. Regan, who is charged with trying to sell top secret defense information to Iraq, Libya and China, marking the first time the government has sought execution for espionage since capital punishment was restored.

Prosecutors argued in a notice filed late Friday that Regan, 39, a retired Air Force master sergeant from Greenbelt, Md., should die for allegedly writing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, offering to sell them American reports about their countries, satellite photographs and the location of U.S. spy satellites in exchange for $13 million.

“It is outrageous that the United States would try and execute a guy who never hurt the United States” said Jonathan Shapiro, one of Regan’s attorneys.

Regan’s indictment does not say whether he sent the letters, and there is no public evidence that he turned over the highly classified information. However, the filing asserts that prosecutors intend to prove that Regan committed espionage.

The possibility that Regan might become the first person executed for espionage since Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953 could change this relatively low-profile spying case into a major national event.