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Asif William Rahman pleaded guilty to passing classified national defense information, the US Department of Justice announced.
Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee pleads guilty to leaking classified documents about Israel's plans to strike Iran last year during a period of escalating regional tensions related to Israel's war on Gaza and Lebanon.
In a statement Friday, the United States Department of Justice said Asif William Rahman, 34, pleaded guilty to two counts of “willful retention and transmission of classified information” related to national defense.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on May 15 and faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison on both counts, according to the agreement.
“Mr. Rahman betrayed the trust of the American people by illegally sharing classified information about the national defense he was sworn to protect,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen said in the statement.
“Today's guilty plea shows that the Department of Justice will spare no effort to quickly and aggressively prosecute those who harm the United States by illegally disclosing our national security secrets.”
The FBI arrested Rahman, who the US government said had been a CIA operative 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 information collected by US spy satellites.
NGA also conducts work in support of US covert military operations.
The documents, which appeared in October on a channel on the Telegram messaging app, noted that Israel was moving military assets into place to launch a military strike in response to a ballistic missile attack by Iran on October 1.
Iran said these launches were carried out in retaliation for the killing of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in the Iranian capital Tehran, as well as the assassination of a senior Iranian military officer.
Israel did its part own attack at multiple sites in Iran in late October.
Citing court documents, the Justice Department said Friday that Rahman had accessed and printed two documents marked “Top Secret” that contained national defense information “about a foreign ally of the United States and its planned actions against a foreign adversary “.
“Rahman removed the documents, photographed them and gave them to individuals he knew were not authorized to receive them,” the department said.
