John Kiriakou

John Kiriakou     ( Spook,  CIA whistleblower)
John Kiriakou, as depicted in Robert Shetterly's "Americans Who Tell the Truth" series
Born	John Chris Kiriakou August 9, 1964  Sharon,  Pennsylvania,  USA
Residence	Arlington,  Virginia,  USA
Nationality	USA
Alma mater	George Washington University
Criminal status	Served twenty-eight months (three months in home confinement)
Children	5
Exposed	•  Black sites •  CIA/Torture
Member of	Institute for Policy Studies, Sam Adams Award, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
The only CIA officer to go to prison for reasons connected to their torturing of suspects - the first whistleblower.

John Kiriakou, the first CIA officer to blow the whistle on the CIA Torture Program, was the only person to go to prison in that connection.

Whistleblowing

On December 10, 2007, Kiriakou gave an interview to ABC News where he was described as participating in the capture and questioning of Abu Zubaydah, supposedly an aide to Osama Bin Laden. In it he stated that CIA had waterboarded Zubaydah. Later the commercially-controlled media reported that Zubaydah had been waterboarded at least 83 times.

Kiriakou termed Gina Haspel the “godmother of the torture program.”

Trial

On January 23, 2012, Kiriakou was charged with repeatedly disclosing classified information to journalists. Lawyer and fellow whistleblower Jesselyn Radack helped him with the case. He was indicted on April 5, 2012. On January 25, 2013, Kiriakou was sentenced to 30 months in prison. On February 3, 2015, Kiriakou was released from prison to serve three months of house arrest at his home in Arlington, Virginia.

Experiences with Israeli intelligence

On several occasions he has related his personal experience, as well as that of his friends, with Israeli intelligence personnel. From the 2025 Turning The Tide Conference:

He explains that US intelligence is putting up with things by Israel that are incomprehensible. When he started on the job in early 1990 as a liaison to brief the Israelis, he was told that they are not briefed at headquarters because they always bring gifts that have listening devices in them. Before he started his briefing, Kiriakou was asked if he was Jewish, which meant that he had to report this as a pitch/proposition/recruitment attempt back to headquarters. He was told that Israel has been ranked as "critical" (highest threat-level) by counter intelligence. If not given full access (to technology in his example), they will just steal what they are missing. When he wanted to do a foreign service assignment he went to Bahrain and friends of his (a married couple) were assigned to Jerusalem. The ambassador informed the Mossad about their assignment in the country. When the couple came back from a welcome party in Tel Aviv, somebody had entered their residence and moved all furniture around. The US embassy confirmed that this is just something that the Israelis would do to them, something that is reoccurring and has happened to others. After a year they went to another party and people had taken a dump in all of the toilets in their residence and left them un-flushed. After another year before they are leaving for the United States again, they come back home and find that somebody has cut the tail of their dog.

Videos

John Kiriakou - CIA Spy Recounts Insane Covert Operations and Assassination Attempts

 

A Quote by John Kiriakou

Page	Quote	Date	Source
Scott Shane	“Scott Shane may be a great reporter. He may be a Pulitzer prize winner, but the man just simply can’t be trusted.”	23 January 2019	The Gray Zone Project

 

Events Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
9-11/Turning The Tide Conference 2025	9 September 2025	12 September 2025	US Washington DC	A conference about 9/11
International Festival of Whistleblowing Dissent and Accountability	8 May 2021	8 May 2021	Internet	Whistleblowing event held in 2021.

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