Pentagon leaker Jack Teixeira faces 15 years imprisonment

Jack Teixeira, a former United States airman part of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for leaking a significant trove of Pentagon documents on social media, US media reported.

Teixeira's actions, deemed as the most damaging intelligence breach in a decade, involved posting sensitive materials on the social media platform, Discord, while serving as an information technology (IT) specialist with the Massachusetts Air National Guard.

This led to a widespread online dissemination of the documents.

Teixeira, who was arrested in April 2023, pleaded guilty in March this year to six federal counts of willful retention and transmission of national defence information.

His family members were also present in court for the sentencing, during which he also apologised for his actions.

"I wanted to say that I'm sorry for all of the harm that I've brought and that I've caused, and that I don't think I can really sum up how contrite I am," Teixeira told the court ahead of sentencing, The Boston Globe reported.

Because he was on active duty at the time of the offences, he was subject to both federal law and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

He will now face a military trial.

The documents leaked by Teixeira pointed to US concern over Ukraine's military capacity against invading Russian forces, and also showed Washington had apparently spied on allies Israel and South Korea, among other sensitive details.

It was the biggest such breach since the 2013 dump of National Security Agency documents by Edward Snowden, and raised serious questions about access by Teixeira and other junior staffers to high-level secrets.