A former UK spy admitted in a London court that he tried to kill a US NSA worker, according to police and prosecutors on Wednesday.

The victim, a woman who was employed by the British intelligence agency GCHQ at the time, suffered multiple stab wounds in the assault in March near GCHQ’s headquarters in Cheltenham, in western England.

The attacker, Joshua Bowles, 29, had worked at GCHQ in the past but had left the agency before the incident, Counter Terrorism Policing South East (CTPSE) said in a statement. They said that Bowles targeted the woman because of her role at GCHQ.

Two innocent victims suffered a brutal and unprovoked assault,” said Detective Chief Superintendent Olly Wright, the head of CTPSE, in a statement.

He said that Bowles had chosen his victim based on her work at GCHQ, which was revealed by their thorough and extensive investigation.

The prosecutor, Emma Gargitter, said in London’s Old Bailey on Wednesday that Bowles had also looked up two other US government workers and asked for him to be sentenced as a terrorist, according to the BBC.

Bowles admitted to one charge of trying to kill the woman and one of attacking a man who intervened. He will receive his sentence later.