A former coder for the CIA who was jailed for allegedly leaking thousands of files to WikiLeaks is now claiming he is the victim of cruel and unusual punishment in prison…
Joshua Adam Schulte is currently in prison awaiting trial for espionage, and he is now claiming he has been the victim of torture at the hands of prison guards that is worse than the treatment inmates endure at Guantanamo Bay.
Schulte is a former coder for the Central Intelligence Agency who had “top secret” level clearance. He stands accused of leaking 8,000 files to WikiLeaks, which made up the organization’s infamous “Vault 7” leaks that detailed the agency’s hacking tools for conducting foreign surveillance. However, the U-S government has yet to bring a case against the accused leaker, and he has been detained in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York since 2017.
In a letter to the judge who revoked his pretrial release last year and ordered him to be remanded without bail, Schulte claimed that when he asked for a meeting with his legal counsel, he was forced into solitary confinement with no explanation.
“My fellow slaves constantly scream, pound and claw at their cages attempting to get attention for basic needs fulfilled,” he wrote. “I’ve witnessed men dragged from their cages and beaten and maced. An officer even uncuffed an inmate and told him to fight away from the cameras. Abuse runs rampant.”
The former CIA coder alleges that the treatment he has endured is worse than the torture methods used on both political dissidents in North Korea and suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. Schulte claimed the torture he and his fellow inmates are subjected to includes filthy showers, regular flooding of their cells with ice-cold water, exposure to constant blasts of cold air, and sleep deprivation caused by uncontrollable lights.
The charges Schulte currently faces include the theft and unauthorized disclosure of classified information from the Central Intelligence Agency. He is also charged with possession of child pornography and criminal copyright infringement after federal agents claim they found thousands of images and videos on his computer.
It remains to be seen if this letter will influence the former CIA employee’s sentence, but his accusations detail a culture of corruption that is impacting a number of inmates, and experts have warned that his experience could be used as an example to discourage future whistleblowers.
