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The man, identified as Asif William Rahman, was arrested by the
FBI this week in Cambodia and was due to make his first court
appearance in Guam.
He was indicted last week in U.S. court in Virginia on two
counts of willful transmission of national defense information —
felony charges that can carry significant prison sentences.
It was not immediately clear whether Rahman had a lawyer or
which federal agency employed him, but officials say he had a
top-secret security clearance with access to sensitive
compartmented information.
The charges stem from the documents, attributed to the National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency,
appearing last month on a channel of the Telegram messaging app.
The documents noted that Israel was still moving military assets
in place to conduct a military strike in response to Iran’s
blistering ballistic missile attack on Oct. 1.
Israel carried out a retaliatory attack on multiple sites in
Iran in late October.
The documents were sharable within the “Five Eyes,” which are
the United States, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
The emergence of the documents triggered an FBI investigation
that examined how the documents were obtained — including
whether it was an intentional leak by a member of the U.S.
intelligence community or obtained by another method, like a
hack — and whether any other intelligence information was
compromised. Officials also worked to determine who had access
to the documents before they were posted.
The New York Times was first to report his arrest.
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