The Pentagon translator was jailed for leaking U.S. sources to the military

Mariam Thompson has been sentenced to 23 years in prison for giving the names of U.S. informants to a man linked to Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

A Pentagon translator has been sentenced to 23 years in prison for passing the names of U.S. informants in Iraq to a person linked to the powerful Shiite movement Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Mariam Thompson, 62, admitted to believing that the classified information was being transmitted to a Lebanese national, that it was being passed on to the group – Washington called it a “terrorist organization.”

“Thompson’s sentence reflects the seriousness of the breach of American trust, endangering human sources and troops working alongside him as friends and colleagues,” said John Demers, head of the Department of Homeland Security. , he said in an appearance Wednesday.

“This case should remind everyone who has been ordered to provide national defense information that this information is unilaterally for personal gain or disclosure to others is not disinterested or heroic; it is criminal,” said Alan Kohler Jr., deputy director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division.

According to court documents, Thompson, a Lebanese-born U.S. citizen, worked as an interpreter at a foreign military base in 2017 when he began a relationship in a video application with a man he said was linked to Lebanese Hezbollah.

“Over time, Thompson created a romantic interest in his conspirator,” the justice department said.

He later learned that the man had a relative in the Lebanese Interior Ministry and said the conspirator had received the ring from Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah.

Security clearance

Thompson was appointed to U.S. special forces in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan region, in December 2019. He had a security clearance from the top secret government.

At the time, the unit launched attacks on pro-Iranian militia Kataib Hezbollah with the death of powerful Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and Kataib leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, which ended on January 3, 2020. Hezbollah.

On January 3, 2020, after the U.S. assassinated powerful Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and the leader of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militia Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis Kataib, Thompson’s contacts requested information about human resources that helped the U.S. carry it out. attack.

He provided data on various U.S. informants, including the real names of at least eight clandestine contacts, and information on U.S. military targets and tactics.

Thompson admitted that he understood that the information would be passed on to Hezbollah.

He was arrested by federal authorities the following month, in late February 2020.

Thompson said he was “desperate” to love someone in his old age and didn’t go out of his way to harm anyone.

“I wanted to be someone who loved me in my old age, and because I was disappointed with that love, I forgot who I was in a short time,” Thompson told the Washington Post.