U.S. sends man to jail for leaking documents on drone strikes

Rights advocates slam sentencing.

A U.S. federal court in Virginia sentenced a former intelligence contractor and member of the U.S. Air Force, Daniel Hale, to almost four years in prison for leaking documents on the U.S.’s drone programme to a news outlet in 2014. The move was sharply criticized by freedom of press and civil liberties advocates as damaging to press freedoms and human rights. Mr Hale, 33, who helped organize drone attacks from Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, was sentenced by a federal court in Virginia to 45 months in prison for leaking the documents to The Intercept, a news outlet, in 2014 (by which time he had left the Air Force and was a contractor for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency). Mr Hale was charged in 2019 under the Espionage Act and pleaded earlier this year. Prosecutors argued that Mr Hale rather than contribute to a debate on drone warfare, aided terror groups, the Associated Press reported.