Former CIA employee pleads guilty to leaking files on Israel’s attacks on Iran | Court news
Asif William Rahman pleaded guilty to transmitting classified national defense information, the US Department of Justice said.
A former employee of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) pleaded guilty to the disclosure of secret documents Israeli plans to attack Iran last year during a period of escalating regional tensions related to Israel’s war against Gaza and Lebanon.
In a statement released Friday, the United States Department of Justice said Asif William Rahman, 34, pleaded guilty to two counts of “willful retention and transfer of classified information” related to national defense.
The sentencing is scheduled for May 15, and according to the plea agreement, he faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for both counts of the indictment.
“MR. Rahman betrayed the trust of the American people by illegally sharing the classified national defense information he swore to protect,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew G Olsen said in a statement.
“Today’s guilty plea demonstrates that the Department of Justice will make every effort to quickly find and aggressively prosecute those who harm the United States by unlawfully disclosing our national security secrets.”
The FBI arrested Rahman — who the US government said had been a CIA employee since 2016 and had a top-secret security clearance — in Cambodia in November.
US media reported at the time that US officials accused him of leaking documents prepared by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), which analyzes images and data collected by US spy satellites.
The NGA also supports covert US military operations.
The documents, which appeared in October on a channel of the Telegram messaging app, said Israel was moving military assets to launch a military strike in response to Iran’s Oct. 1 ballistic missile attack.
Iran said the launches were carried out in retaliation for the killing of the Hamas leader Ismail Hanija in the capital of Iran, Tehran, as well as the assassination of a high-ranking Iranian military official.
Israel has done its thing own attack in several locations in Iran at the end of October.
Citing court documents, the Justice Department said Friday that Rahman accessed and printed two documents marked “top secret” that contained national defense information “relating to a US foreign ally and its planned actions against a foreign adversary.”
“Rahman removed the documents, photographed them and forwarded them to people he knew were not entitled to receive them,” the department said.
