It was one of “the most brazen and momentous cases of espionage in US history,” proclaimed the prosecutor after the conviction of a former CIA programmer. The 33-year-old faces a decade-long prison sentence for passing on secret documents to Wikileaks.
A former employee of the US secret service CIA has been convicted of passing on secret documents to the Wikileaks disclosure platform. A jury in a federal court in the US state of New York found him guilty on all nine charges on Wednesday (local time), as US media reported unanimously. He now faces up to 80 years in prison. The 33-year-old was “convicted of one of the brazen and most serious cases of espionage in US history,” said prosecutor Damian Williams.
In March 2017, Wikileaks released thousands of pages of confidential documents. This showed that the CIA had set up its own programming team to specifically spy on suspects through weak points in smartphones, computers and televisions, among other things. The release gave access to the tools to hackers worldwide.
According to the Ministry of Justice, during a large-scale manhunt, investigators came across the man who had worked as a software engineer at the CIA until 2016, developing spy programs. He was charged in 2018 with, among other things, illegally obtaining national defense information and unlawfully sharing it.
In 2020, a court case against the man ended in a guilty verdict of contempt of court and false testimony to the FBI, the Washington Post reported. The jury could not have agreed on eight other, more serious charges. The proceedings were then restarted. According to prosecutors, the programmer passed on the documents out of displeasure that the CIA had ignored his complaints about working conditions. However, he saw himself as a scapegoat and stated in court that there was no motive, as the newspaper went on to write.
In a process that has not yet been completed, the 33-year-old is also accused of possessing child pornography. During a search, investigators are said to have discovered corresponding files on his computer. He has pleaded not guilty.
