A court sentenced former CIA chief David Petraeus to two years' probation and fined him $100,000 on Thursday for providing classified secrets to his mistress, US justice officials said.

Petraeus, the former general feted in the US as the man who changed the course of the Iraq war, pleaded guilty in a North Carolina court, avoiding a trial that would have cast an embarrassing light on details of his affair and his flouting of secrecy laws.