The indictment came on the eve of a US-led summit in Poland that’s focused on Iran.
A former US Air Force intelligence specialist has been accused of spying for Iran.
On Wednesday, federal prosecutors charged Monica Elfriede Witt, a 39-year-old former counterintelligence agent, with delivering classified defense information to the Iranian government. She was also charged with revealing information about her former colleagues so they could be targeted by Iranian intelligence.
Witt defected to Iran in 2013, according to prosecutors, and is presumably still living there.
Four Iranian hackers who were also charged in the indictment reportedly targeted Witt’s co-workers in the US intelligence community with malware in order to gain access to their system. Prosecutors say they were working on behalf of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, an elite military and security force that the US has targeted with sanctions.
John Demers, the assistant attorney general for the National Security Division, said in a statement on Wednesday that Witt acted in violation of “the law, her solemn oath to protect and defend our country, and the bounds of human decency.
