Israeli military plan whistleblower sentenced to 3 years in prison in US.
From the Washington Post, Asif William Rahman pleaded guilty to two counts of violating the Espionage Act and admitted to leaking more than a dozen classified documents while working as a CIA analyst.
He was arrested last year after FBI investigators traced two documents detailing Israeli military preparations to Rahman’s office at the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
The two top-secret documents from the National Geographic Intelligence Agency were published in mid-October on a Telegram channel called “Middle East Observer,” describing air drills and munitions movements at an Israeli airport that were consistent with preparations for an attack on Iran, but did not contain any images, U.S. officials said.
The leaks also spread to other social media outlets, causing Israel to delay its planned attack.
“I don’t think the gravity of this behavior can be overstated,” U.S. District Judge Patricia Toliver Giles said in sentencing Rahman in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. “Our intelligence community is responsible for keeping our country safe, and when we do anything to jeopardize that responsibility, we are all at risk.”
The leaked information was so sensitive, she said, “I couldn’t even have it in my room, and yet it was all over social media.”
Rahman, 34, also admitted to leaking more than a dozen other classified documents, although their contents were not described in the court filings or public proceedings. His lawyers said he had led a promising life — a top student who graduated with honors from Yale University in three years and left a high-paying job in finance to join the CIA.
According to IRNA, the Intercept previously reported in an article that a CIA employee is accused of leaking classified documents related to Iran, saying: Prosecutors claim that Israel postponed its attack on Iran due to the disclosure of information by the US CIA.