Jeremy Hammond, described as an Internet activist who hacked for Anonymous and allegedly broke into the networks of intelligence firm Stratfor, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Friday.
He was accused of leaking information to anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, reported RT. He was accused of leaking 5 million e-mails acquired from Stratfor before sending them to WikiLeaks, which then published the information.
WikiLeaks had suggested that Stratfor was hired by private entities like corporations as well as government agencies to monitor activists and political protesters, including Occupy Wall Street and PETA.
Hammond pleaded guilty during his trial and released a statement saying that he worked for Anonymous. His guilty plea was part of a plea bargain, reducing his sentence to 10 years.
“I did this because I believe people have the right to know what government and corporations are doing behind closed doors. I did what I believe is right,” he wrote.
According to Al Jazeera, Hammond has spent around 18 months in solitary confinement and he was denied bail and access to his family.
His supporters have claimed that Hammond’s Stratfor hack was the result of FBI entrapment and was not his own idea.
“This is not something that Jeremy initiated,” an activist friend of Hammond told Al Jazeera.
The U.S. government, however, said that Hammond caused millions of dollars in damage.
“Hammond is a hacking recidivist who, over the course of almost a year, launched cyber attacks that harmed businesses, individuals, and governments; caused losses of between $1 million and $2.5 million; affected thousands of people; and threatened the safety of the public and law enforcement officers and their families,” reads a memo from the government.
Hammond wrote in a statement that an Anonymous affiliate who went by the handle “Sabu” was also an FBI informant who lived a double life.
“It is widely known that Sabu was used to build cases against a number of hackers, including myself,” he wrote.. “What many do not know is that Sabu was also used by his handlers to facilitate the hacking of targets of the government’s choosing … What the United States could not accomplish legally, it used Sabu, and by extension, me and my co-defendants, to accomplish illegally.”
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