A former CIA engineer has been identified as the suspect behind the largest leak of classified documents in CIA history.

Joshua Schulte, 29, has been accused of handing over thousands of stolen files to the anti-secrecy website Wikileaks.

The archive of files detailed the CIA's use of hacking tools, including malware to take over iPhones and turn smart television sets into surveillance devices.

Mr Schulte, a software engineer, spent six years at the CIA and designed malware to break into terrorism suspects' computers.

He left to work in the private sector in 2016, according to his LinkedIn page.

In March 2017, Wikileaks published thousands of documents, which they dubbed "Vault 7", describing the spy agency's cyber-warfare programme.

Within a week of the first batch of leaks, US intelligence agencies launched a criminal investigation and searched Mr Schulte's apartment in New York