By Enyichukwu Enemanna
An Ethiopian contractor has been arrested in the United States and charged with sending classified information to Ethiopia.
Abraham Teklu Lemma, who worked at the State and Justice departments, is accused of passing on classified information since August last year to an official associated with Ethiopia’s intelligence service, the Justice Department alleges.
The department did not name the African country the 50-year-old Ethiopian was allegedly spying for.
The New York Times and other US media outlets identified the country as Ethiopia.
The accused person faces three charges, including gathering or delivering defence information to aid a foreign government and unauthorised possession of national defence information and willfully retaining it.
Mr Abraham, whose arrest last month was not made known until Thursday, is a naturalised US citizen of Ethiopian descent living in Silver Spring, Maryland.
He worked as an IT administrator for the Department of State, and as a management analyst for the Department of Justice. The suspect had been granted top secret security clearance and access to the US classified systems.
He could face death penalty if convicted of espionage.
