An ex-CIA analyst pleaded guilty Friday to leaking top secret documents about Israel’s plans to retaliate against Iran last year, forcing the attack to be delayed.
Asif W. Rahman, 34, admitted to violating the Espionage Act when he leaked two records he took from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency on Oct. 17, which indicated that Israel was planning an airstrike in retaliation for Iran’s missile attack on Oct. 1, according to court papers filed in Virginia federal court Friday.
The top secret documents then landed the next day on a Telegram channel called “Middle East Spectator” and eventually “appeared publicly on multiple social media platforms, complete with the classification ranking,” a statement of facts filed by prosecutors shows.
Rahman — who’d been with the CIA since 2016 and had a top-secret security clearance — was working in the US Embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, when he snuck the documents out in his backpack, bringing them home, copying them and distributing them, before destroying evidence of his actions, prosecutors claim.