A former CIA analyst who was arrested in November 2024 for leaking Top Secret US intelligence documents about Israel's plan to strike Iran has been sentenced to 37 months in prison, according to the US Justice Department.
According to the Justice Department, Asif William Rahman, 34, has worked for the CIA since 2016 and had access to Top Secret information until he was terminated after his arrest.
"For months, this defendant betrayed the American people and the oaths he took upon entering his office by leaking some of our Nation's most closely held secrets," said John Eisenberg, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, on Wednesday.
"By stealing and divulging classified information and then attempting to conceal his crimes, Asif Rahman not only violated the law; he also betrayed his oath as a government employee and his responsibility to the American people," said Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division.
Rahman accessed and printed two Top Secret documents on October 17, 2024, containing National Defence Information regarding a "US foreign ally and its planned actions against a foreign adversary", the department said.
He then photographed them and transmitted them to individuals who were not entitled to receive them.
The following day, October 18, the documents started to spread across social media platforms, after which he started a deletion campaign of work product on his Top Secret work station.
Rahman's indictment, arrest
A grand Jury indicted Rahman on November 7, 2024, and he was arrested by the FBI on November 12.
Nevertheless, the department said he continued to access documents until November before he was arrested.
Rahman pleaded guilty on January 17, 2025, to two counts of willful retention and transmission of classified information related to the national defence.
He was scheduled to be sentenced on May 15, and remained under custody after his arrest.
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Source: TRT