WASHINGTON — Abraham Teklu Lemma, an Ethiopian-born American citizen who worked as a US government IT contractor, has pleaded guilty to passing highly classified intelligence to Ethiopia, including information prosecutors say he hoped would help Ethiopian forces target and kill fighters from the Tigray region during the country's 2020-22 civil war, the US Department of Justice said.

Source: BBC News, Nov 4, 2026

Lemma, 54, of Silver Spring, Maryland, pleaded guilty on Tuesday (November 3) to conspiring to transmit national defence information to a foreign government. He had worked as an IT administrator and contractor at the US Department of State, the Department of Justice and the National Reconnaissance Office — the agency responsible for US intelligence satellites — and held Top Secret/SCI clearance, one of the highest levels in the US system.

Prosecutors said that between 2021 and his arrest in August 2023, Lemma shared dozens of classified documents, photographs, maps and satellite imagery with senior figures in Ethiopia's political, military and intelligence establishments. Court documents described his copying of dozens of intelligence reports — at least 85 during one period, many concerning Ethiopia — and said he secretly removed classified material from secure facilities, sometimes copying sensitive information into handwritten notes he carried out of the buildings, removing classification markings, copying material onto CDs and DVDs, and sending it through encrypted messaging applications, the Department of Justice said.

Source: Addis Standard / US Department of Justice, Nov 4, 2026

'Please send drones': what prosecutors say the messages show

According to the Justice Department, much of the information concerned the armed conflict in Ethiopia, and prosecutors said Lemma hoped it would help Ethiopia's military identify and kill paramilitary fighters. In one message to an Ethiopian official on December 18, 2021, he wrote: 'We have to finish these people once and for all, otherwise there will never be peace in Ethiopia.' Later that day, after transmitting more information, he wrote: 'Please send Dro[nes].'

The FBI said Ethiopian officials subsequently used intelligence supplied by Lemma in military operations. Roman Rozhavsky, assistant director of the FBI's Counterintelligence and Espionage Division, said that by Lemma's own admission the information was used during the conflict. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said Lemma 'betrayed the United States to an extraordinary degree', exploiting his privileged IT access to remove sensitive information from secure facilities. US Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro said he had betrayed his oath, his colleagues and his country.

Background: the Tigray war the secrets were about

The case reaches back to Ethiopia's northern war, which erupted in November 2020 — six years ago this month — between federal forces, backed by Eritrean troops and Amhara forces, and Tigray forces led by the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). The two-year war spread into the Amhara and Afar regions, caused widespread casualties and displacement, and was marked by findings of war crimes and crimes against humanity, before the main fighting formally ended with the November 2022 Pretoria Cessation of Hostilities Agreement. Lemma's spying overlapped with that war and its aftermath.

What happens next: under the plea agreement, which remains subject to acceptance by the court, Lemma faces a recommended sentence of 120 to 262 months in prison; sentencing is scheduled for April 14, 2027. He had initially pleaded not guilty after his August 2023 arrest. The case was investigated by the FBI's Washington Field Office and prosecuted by the US Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia with the Justice Department's National Security Division. The BBC reported it has contacted the Ethiopian authorities for comment.