A former South African Air Force Brigadier General has pleaded guilty to one count of acting as a South African agent and one count of making false statements in her efforts to obtain a security clearance.
A statement from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee says 59-year-old Portia Anyamba worked in the National Security Programme Office at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2023 and 2024.
It says Anyamba regularly communicated with an intelligence officer attached to the South African Embassy in Washington, DC.
As part of Anyamba’s plea deal, she was sentenced to 6 months’ imprisonment, followed by two years of supervised release and $9500 fine.
During the course of the investigation, the FBI found Anyamba regularly communicated with a State Security Agent at the South African Embassy in Washington including meeting with this individual and another official in Knoxville Tennessee in February 2024.
Anyamba was said to have been intercepted before another planned meeting in November of the same year.
While under the control of foreign agents, Anymaba was said to be in the midst of her application process for a US Government Security clearance, which, if granted, would have provided her with access to certain classified information.
On her application, Anyamba certified that she had no contact with foreign agents, something that proved to be materially false.
This is from a facebook post from SANDF: 26 November 2020:
A Air Force #ThrowbackThursday | Embracing our Collective Heritage: Brigadier General (ret) Portia Nozipho Sibiya.
The importance of stopping to reflect when people are travelling long distances cannot be overstated.…
— Sherwin Bryce-Pease (@sherwiebp) July 9, 2026
About the Author
