United States: the soldier charged with the leak of confidential documents made “threats” on the internet, according to justice

The young American soldier accused of having diffused a series of confidential American documents on the war in Ukraine had uttered “menaces” online and poses a danger if released. That’s what prosecutors said ahead of a detention hearing scheduled for Thursday, April 27. According to a court document made public before the hearing to support his continued detention, Jack Teixeira, 21, “regularly commented on violence and killings” on social networks.

“In November 2022 he said if it was up to him he would ‘kill a ton of people’ to ‘kill the weak-minded’“, write the prosecutors. They add that in February 2023, Jack Teixeira had also sought advice from another Internet user on the type of rifle that would be easier to use in the back of an SUV vehicle, evoking a mass shooting “in an urban or suburban crowd”.

He faces up to 25 years in prison at this point.

Prosecutors also point out that the suspect had several weapons, some “a few meters from his bed” and that the search of his mother’s and father’s homes had revealed a “virtual armory”, including guns and a bazooka. In March 2018, while a high school student, he was suspended from school “because a classmate overheard him talking about weapons, including Molotov cocktails, guns at school, and racial threats”, prosecutors add. He justified himself during an interrogation by evoking a discussion on video games.

According to American justice, Jack Teixeira, who faces 25 years in prison at this stage, poses a “serious risk of flight”. “He had access and may still have access to a body of classified information of great value to hostile nation states that could offer him sanctuary and attempt to facilitate his escape from the United States”further specifies the court document.

Hired in September 2019, with assignments as a computer and communications specialist, Jeack Teixeira is suspected of having taken advantage of his position, and his “top secret” security clearance, to gain access to confidential documents and to have shared them then with a private group on the Discord social network.