Maryland contractor pleads guilty to sharing top-secret US data with Ethiopia

Abraham Teklu Lemma, a former U.S. government contractor from Silver Spring, Maryland, pleaded guilty to sharing classified intelligence with Ethiopia.

The U.S. Justice Department announced the plea on Tuesday. Lemma, 54, admitted to conspiring to transmit national defense information to a foreign government. He worked as an information technology contractor for the State Department, the Justice Department, and the National Reconnaissance Office.

Prosecutors stated that Lemma supplied secrets to senior Ethiopian officials for more than two years. The information reached the military and intelligence branches of the Ethiopian government between 2021 and August 2023. Roman Rozhavsky, an FBI counterintelligence official, said Lemma admitted that Ethiopian officials used the intelligence in military operations. The Justice Department did not identify the specific operations or say if anyone died as a result.

An FBI affidavit filed in 2023 alleged that Lemma sent top-secret satellite imagery and classified reports through an encrypted messaging application. He communicated with Ethiopian government operatives during this period. In a message from December 2021, Lemma urged a contact to act against the government's opponents. He wrote, “We have to finish these people once and for all, otherwise there will never be peace in Ethiopia,” according to the Washington prosecutor’s office.

The disclosures occurred during the war between federal forces and Tigrayan fighters from 2020 to 2022. Researchers at Belgium’s Ghent University estimated that 500,000 civilians died during that conflict due to violence, famine, and health service collapse. A peace agreement in Pretoria ended that war, but fighting resumed in September. Government-allied fighters entered Mekelle, the capital of Tigray, on Oct. 4 after the Tigray People's Liberation Front withdrew.

The Ethiopian government has not issued public statements on the case. The U.S. statements did not name the armed groups that the Ethiopian government targeted using Lemma’s intelligence. Lemma was arrested in August 2023.

His plea agreement allows for a prison term of 10 years to 21 years and 10 months, subject to court acceptance. Lemma is scheduled to be sentenced on April 14, 2027.