Politics

Ex-CIA officer gets 40 years in prison for leaking secrets to Wikileaks

Washington, Feb 2 (EFE).- A United States court has sentenced a former CIA officer to 40 years in prison for leaking classified information and possessing child pornographic material.

“Joshua Schulte betrayed his country by committing some of the most brazen, heinous crimes of espionage in American history,” Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said in a statement on Thuesday.

Schulte, 35, who previously worked at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), was found guilty in 2022 on eight counts, including charges related to leaking classified documents to the whistleblowing agency WikiLeaks.

The leak, code-named Vault 7 by Wikileaks, is considered the largest theft of classified information in the history of the CIA.

Schulte was sentenced by Judge Jesse Furman “for crimes of espionage, computer hacking, contempt of court, making false statements to the FBI, and child pornography.”

In addition to the prison term, he was sentenced to a lifetime of supervised release.

“Schulte’s theft and disclosure immediately and profoundly damaged the CIA’s ability to collect foreign intelligence against America’s adversaries, placed CIA personnel, programs, and assets directly at risk, and cost the CIA hundreds of millions of dollars,” the statement said.

Vault 7 leak detailed how the CIA used malware to hack mobile phones and computers and turned smart TVs into listening devices.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is imprisoned in the United Kingdom and is awaiting a decision on a US extradition request for having exposed thousands of secret documents from various countries. EFE

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