Photo: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
34-year-old former US Central Intelligence Agency analyst Asif William Rahman has been sentenced to three years and one month in prison for deliberately leaking classified information about Israel’s plans to launch an air strike on Iran. This was reported by the BBC with reference to court materials.
As the investigation established, Rahman, having a high level of access to classified documents, printed, photographed and transmitted top-secret materials that appeared on the Iranian Telegram account in October 2024. These included internal Pentagon assessments of the movement of Israeli military assets and plans for an attack on Iran. These documents were intended only for a limited number of intelligence services of the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance.
The ex-intelligence officer was detained abroad in Cambodia. After his arrest, the FBI transported him to the island of Guam, where Rahman pleaded guilty to intentionally storing and transmitting defence information. In January 2025, he entered into a plea deal with the investigation.
His actions, according to the prosecutor’s office, endangered international operations of the United States and its allies and could have provoked a serious escalation of the interstate conflict in the Middle East.
