The main suspect in leaking secret documents froml Pentagona 21-year-old aviator of the National Guard of the United States, was formally accused this Friday by the justice of “unauthorized retention and transmission” of that stuff.
Jack Teixeira appeared in federal court in Boston after a week of investigation into one of the biggest leaks of classified material since Edward Snowden leaked National Security Agency documents in 2013.
Specifically, the court accuses him of unauthorized possession and transmission of information relating to the Ministry of Defenseas well as the unauthorized removal of this documentation.
At the appearance, Teixeira did not have to present any statement regarding his possible guilt, while the next hearing was set for next Wednesday, according to the US network CNN.
The defendant limited himself to responding in a low voice when the judge notified him of his rights, the AFP news agency reported.
The FBI arrested Teixeira this Thursday, after all the clues pointed to this member of the air national guard as responsible for one of the most serious document leaks in the last ten years in the United States.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland said Teixeira was arrested “in connection with an investigation into the alleged unauthorized removal, retention, and transmission of classified national defense information.”
Images from the operation in North Dighton, in the state of Massachusetts (northeast), showed the suspect, dressed in red shorts and a T-shirt, with his hands behind his head, slowly backing towards the heavily armed camouflage-clad agents. that they stopped him.
The US National Guard said that Teixeira enlisted in September 2019, is a specialist in information technology and communications, and that he achieved the rank of airman first class.
The US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, praised in a statement the Department of Justice and the FBI “for his prompt arrest” of the suspect.
Austin added that he ordered a review of “intelligence control, accountability and access procedures within the (Defense) department to inform our efforts to prevent this type of incident from happening again,” AFP reported.
The arrest of Jack Teixeira
Teixeira’s arrest occurred one day after the daily The Washington Post reported that hundreds of pages of documents had been posted on the social network Discord by a man who worked at a US military base.
According to The New York Times, a “digital trail evidence” pointed to Teixeira as the leader of the private chat group on Discord, called Thug Shaker Centralwhere the documents appeared.
The leak revealed US concerns about the feasibility of a forthcoming counteroffensive by Kiev forces against Russian troops, as well as concerns about Ukrainian air defenses, noting that Washington is spying on allies such as Israel and South Korea.
The detainee, who called himself “AND”had been regularly posting documents to the Thug Shaker Central chat group for months, according to news reports.
OG told the group members that he spent part of the day “inside a secure facility that prohibited cell phones and other electronic devices.”
He first wrote the contents of classified documents to share with the group, but then began taking photos, telling other members not to share them, The Washington Post reported.
OG had a “dark view of government” and “talked about America, and particularly the law enforcement and intelligence community, as a sinister force that sought to suppress its citizens and keep them in the dark”the outlet said, citing one of the group’s members.