A 54-year-old Ethiopia-born former U.S. government contractor has entered a guilty plea to charges of conspiring to share top-tier classified U.S. intelligence with senior Ethiopian political, military and intelligence officials over a two-year period, in a scheme designed to aid Ethiopian federal forces in targeting and eliminating opposing paramilitary fighters during the country’s brutal 2020-2022 civil war. The U.S. Department of Justice announced the plea deal this week, identifying the defendant as Abraham Teklu Lemma, who previously held IT administrator roles across three sensitive U.S. government entities: the State Department, Department of Justice, and the National Reconnaissance Office, the federal agency that oversees the entire U.S. military and intelligence satellite fleet. Between 2021 and his arrest in Maryland in August 2023, Lemma systematically exfiltrated restricted material from secured government facilities, at times transcribing highly sensitive details into handwritten notes to smuggle off premises, while leveraging his IT access privileges to extract and export digital classified files. He transmitted dozens of confidential documents, satellite imagery, and granular records of U.S.-observed military activity to Ethiopian officials via encrypted messaging platforms, with explicit stated intent to help the Ethiopian military locate and neutralize Tigray regional forces. Court filings reveal a December 2021 message Lemma sent to a high-ranking Ethiopian official, in which he wrote, “We have to finish these people once and for all, otherwise there will never be peace in Ethiopia,” followed immediately by additional intelligence submissions and a direct appeal for the Ethiopian side to deploy drone assets for targeted operations. Federal prosecutors confirmed that the Ethiopian government actively used the intelligence Lemma provided to carry out official military operations during the conflict, which killed an estimated hundreds of thousands of civilians and combatants alike, displaced millions of people across the Tigray region, and was widely documented to include widespread atrocities such as massacres, systematic sexual violence, and deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure. Top U.S. national security officials have condemned Lemma’s actions as a severe breach of public trust and national security. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro noted that Lemma abused his privileged access to some of the United States’ most closely guarded intelligence assets, betraying his oath of office, his government colleagues, and his home country to an unprecedented degree. Assistant U.S. Attorney General for National Security John Eisenberg echoed that condemnation, stating that the defendant’s deliberate actions put U.S. national interests and operational security at serious risk. Under the terms of his formal plea agreement, Lemma faces a maximum statutory sentence of 22 years of federal imprisonment, with a formal sentencing hearing scheduled for April 14, 2027. The 2020-2022 Tigray civil war formally concluded with a November 2022 peace accord between Ethiopian federal authorities and Tigray regional leadership, though localized tensions and sporadic bouts of insecurity have continued across parts of northern Ethiopia in the years following the ceasefire.