Abraham Teklu Lemma, 54, worked as a contractor at the State Department, the Justice Department and the National Reconnaissance Office, the US agency responsible for intelligence satellites.
Prosecutors said Lemma worked with senior figures in Ethiopia's political, military and intelligence establishments, secretly removing classified material from secure government facilities. He sometimes copied sensitive information into handwritten notes that he carried out of the buildings and used his position as an IT administrator to extract electronic intelligence files.
"Much of the highly classified information Lemma shared with the Ethiopian government concerned an armed conflict in Ethiopia," prosecutors said. The information included satellite imagery and details of military activities, which he passed to Ethiopian officials through encrypted messages. The FBI said Ethiopian officials subsequently used intelligence supplied by Lemma in military operations.
"In doing so, he betrayed his oath, his colleagues, and his country, while jeopardizing our national security," said US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Ferris Pirro.
Prosecutors said Lemma hoped the information would help Ethiopia's military identify and kill paramilitary fighters. In one message to an Ethiopian official in December 2021, he wrote: "We have to finish these people once and for all, otherwise there will never be peace in Ethiopia," court papers showed. Later that day, he shared further intelligence and urged the official: "Please send Dro[nes]."
"Lemma betrayed the United States to an extraordinary degree," said John Eisenberg, the US assistant attorney general for national security.
The conflict, which began in 2020 and ended in 2022, pitted Ethiopian federal forces against fighters from Tigray. A peace agreement signed in November 2022 ended the main fighting, although fighting has resumed in the region. The civil war killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions.
Lemma was arrested in Maryland in August 2023. His sentencing is scheduled for 14 April 2027.