Former US contractor Abraham Teklu Lemma admitted sharing dozens of classified documents and photographs with Ethiopian officials over more than two years, according to the US Department of Justice.

He worked as a contractor at the State Department, the Justice Department and the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency responsible for US intelligence satellites. The material included satellite imagery and details of military activities, passed on through encrypted messages, and the FBI said Ethiopian officials used the intelligence in military operations. In one message to an Ethiopian official in December 2021, Lemma wrote that “we have to finish these people once and for all,” because otherwise there would never be peace in Ethiopia, and later that day he urged the official to send drones. He pleaded guilty to conspiring to transmit national defense information to a foreign government, faces sentencing on April 14, 2027, and could get up to 22 years in prison.