US contractor gave Ethiopia secrets to help kill Tigray fighters
The Ethiopian-born American citizen admitted sharing dozens of classified documents with senior Ethiopian officials.
US contractor passed secrets to Ethiopia to aid killing of Tigray fighters
The brutal two-year civil war left hundreds of thousands dead and forced millions from their homes.
An Ethiopian-born US citizen has admitted guilt in handing over highly classified intelligence to Ethiopia, including material he hoped would help locate and kill fighters during the country’s 2020 civil war.
Abraham Teklu Lemma, a former US contractor, confessed to sharing dozens of classified documents and photographs with senior Ethiopian officials over a period of more than two years, according to the US Department of Justice.
“In doing so, he betrayed his oath, his colleagues, and his country, while jeopardizing our national security,” said US Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro.
The 54-year-old could receive up to 22 years in prison under a plea deal, and sentencing is set for next April.
Abraham had served as a contractor for the State Department, the Justice Department and the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency that oversees US intelligence satellites.
Prosecutors said Abraham worked with senior figures in Ethiopia’s political, military and intelligence circles between 2021 and his arrest in August 2023.
He secretly took classified material from secure government facilities, at times copying sensitive information into handwritten notes that he carried out of the buildings. Using his role as an IT administrator, he also extracted electronic intelligence files.
“Much of the highly classified information Lemma shared with the Ethiopian government concerned an armed conflict in Ethiopia,” prosecutors said.
The material included satellite imagery and details of military operations, which he sent to Ethiopian officials through encrypted messages.
The FBI said Ethiopian officials later used intelligence provided by Abraham in military operations.
Prosecutors said he wanted the information to help Ethiopia’s military identify and kill paramilitary fighters.
“Lemma betrayed the United States to an extraordinary degree,” said John Eisenberg, the US assistant attorney general for national security.
In a December 2021 message to an Ethiopian official, he wrote: “We have to finish these people once and for all, otherwise there will never be peace in Ethiopia,” court documents showed.
Later that same day, he sent more intelligence and told the official: “Please send Dro[nes].”
The disclosures highlighted how sensitive American intelligence was transferred to Ethiopian authorities during a devastating civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions.
He was arrested in Maryland in August 2023 after an investigation into his handling of classified intelligence.
At the time, prosecutors said he had removed security markings from intelligence reports and shared information with a foreign intelligence official.
In one exchange, the official asked him to keep providing help, and Lemma responded: “Roger that!”
Pirro, the US attorney, said Abraham had misused his access to some of America’s most sensitive intelligence.
She said he had betrayed his colleagues and his country, while prosecutors said he “will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law”.
Abraham pleaded guilty to conspiring to transmit national defence information to a foreign government.
His sentencing is scheduled for 14 April 2027.
The two-year conflict, which began in November 2020, pitted Ethiopian federal forces and their allies against fighters from the northern Tigray region.
It was marked by widespread allegations of atrocities, including massacres, sexual violence and attacks on civilians.
A peace agreement signed in November 2022 ended the main fighting, though tensions and insecurity have continued.