WASHINGTON, April 5 (UPI) -- A former CIA officer was indicted for allegedly revealing classified information to journalists and other unauthorized people, the U.S. Justice Department said.
Former CIA officer John Kiriakou was charged in a five-count indictment with violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, violating the Espionage Act and lying to the CIA's Publications Review Board, the Justice Department said Thursday in a release.
Kiriakou is accused of illegally revealing the identity of a covert officer and illegally disclosing national defense information to people not authorized to receive such information and of lying to the agency's Publications Review Board in a failed attempt to trick the CIA into allowing him to include classified information in a book he was trying to publish, Justice officials said.
Kiriakou, 47, of Arlington, Va., was a CIA intelligence officer between 1990 and 2004, serving in assignments at headquarters and overseas.
Kiriakou allegedly disclosed the then-classified name and contact information of an employee who participated in the capture and questioning of terrorism subject Abu Zubaydah in 2002, Justice officials said. Kiriakou's alleged disclosures occurred before a June 2008 story in The New York Times in which the officer's alleged role in the Zubaydah operation was revealed.
Officials said classified information Kiriakou allegedly disclosed to a journalist was provided by the journalist to a defense investigator in a matter involving Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison detainees. The probe concludes the defense team committed no criminal violations.
Kiriakou's arraignment is April 13 in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va.
