WASHINGTON - A U.S. government contract employee for the Justice and State Departments was arrested on espionage charges unsealed on Thursday, prosecutors said, accusing him of passing on classified information to Ethiopia. He faced three charges including "delivering national defense information to aid a foreign government, conspiracy to deliver national defense information to aid a foreign government, and the willful retention of national defense information," the Justice Department said. Between December 2022, and August 2023, Lemma copied classified information from intelligence reports and deleted the classification markings from them, the Justice Department said. Lemma then removed the information, which was classified as 'secret' and 'top secret,' from secure facilities at the State Department. Lemma used an encrypted application to transmit classified national defense information to a foreign government official associated with a foreign country's intelligence service, the Justice Department said.

Source: Ethiopian News September 21, 2023 23:12 UTC