U.S. contractor pleads guilty to spying for Ethiopia after urging drone deployment

Abraham Teklu Lemma, a former U.S. government IT contractor, pleaded guilty in Washington on November 3 to conspiring to pass national defense information to Ethiopia. The Justice Department said he also urged an Ethiopian official to send drones during the country’s armed conflict.

On December 18, 2021, Lemma urged the official to eliminate paramilitary fighters opposing the government, saying Ethiopia would otherwise never have peace, according to messages disclosed by the Justice Department. Later that day, he sent more information and wrote: “Please send Dro[nes].”

FBI counterintelligence chief Roman Rozhavsky said Lemma had admitted providing classified defense information that Ethiopian officials used in military operations. The Justice Department announcement did not identify specific operations, targets or casualties.

In August 2022, Lemma used an encrypted messaging app to send top-secret satellite imagery of the region to an account the FBI linked to a foreign intelligence official. The following month, he sent classified information about another country’s activities in the region, according to the FBI’s 2023 affidavit.

That recipient sought information on forward-deployed command posts and logistics centers. Lemma replied that he had been focusing on logistics centers all week, according to exchanges quoted in the affidavit. He also sent photographs of a military compound. When the official asked him in September 2022 to continue helping, Lemma replied: “Roger that!”

Lemma had worked for the National Reconnaissance Office and the State and Justice departments. At the time of the FBI investigation, he worked evenings as a help desk technician in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research and held a daytime job as a Justice Department contract management analyst. He had started the Justice Department job around May 2022, the affidavit said. He had held a top-secret clearance since at least 2020 and gained access to sensitive compartmented information in July 2021.

His administrator privileges allowed him to transfer classified material between classified systems and move unclassified information out of them. To access another agency’s classified system, however, he needed a specific IT service request from a State Department employee, the affidavit said.

Between December 19, 2022, and August 7, 2023, he copied information from at least 85 intelligence reports without a work-related need to access them, according to the FBI’s account of a State Department review.

Investigators watched him copy passages from top-secret reports into Word documents on August 7, remove the classification markings and burn the files onto a disc that appeared to have a green label, the affidavit said. He put the disc in his jacket pocket and left. The FBI agent noted that the State Department’s green-labeled discs were marked “Unclassified” and intended only for unclassified material.

On August 15, investigators saw him spend about 15 minutes taking notes on paper while viewing a classified system. He folded the sheet, put it in his pocket and left the secure facility.

Lemma was arrested later that month. The Justice Department said he had passed dozens of documents, notes, photographs and other materials to senior Ethiopian political, military and intelligence officials since 2021. Much of the information concerned the armed conflict in Ethiopia; some was classified as Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information.

His plea agreement provides for 120 to 262 months in prison—10 years to 21 years and 10 months—subject to the court’s acceptance, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington. Judge John D. Bates has scheduled sentencing for April 14, 2027.