A US military linguist has been jailed for 23 years for passing classified information to a remote national linked to the Lebanese Islamist militant group Hezbollah. Mariam Thompson, 62, admitted sharing the names of people informants in Iraq with a person she was romantically linked with. She said she had been “desperate” for “someone to like me in my old age” and failed to start out to harm anyone. Prosecutors said she knew she was putting US sources and troops in danger. “Thompson’s sentence reflects the seriousness of her violation of the trust of the American people, of the human sources she jeopardized and of the troops who worked at her side as friends and colleagues,” John A Lebanon-born US citizen, Thompson worked as a contract linguist at a remote US military facility, where she was entrusted with a top-secret security clearance. During this posting in 2017, she became romantically committed to a person who said he had ties to Hezbollah and also the Lebanese government, prosecutors said. A Shia Islamist organization and militant group, Hezbollah wields considerable power in Lebanon and has close relations with Iran. Over time, Thompson developed an in-depth relationship with the person, whom she communicated on secure video and messaging apps. Prosecutors said US military operations in Iraq prompted Thompson to show over sensitive information to the person in 2020. In December 2019, while Thompson was assigned to a Special Operations Task Force facility in Iraq, the US had launched a series of airstrikes in Iraq targeting Kataib Hezbollah, a US-designated foreign terrorist organization. Then, in January 2020, the US launched another airstrike that resulted in the death of Qasem Soleimani, Iran’s most powerful military commander at the time. Soon after this, Thompson’s love interest approached her for information on who had helped the US target Soleimani. Acting on this request, the linguist handed over dozens of files about intelligence sources, which she accessed on US military computer systems. Thompson provided her co-conspirator with the identities of a minimum of eight sources, a minimum of 10 US targets, and multiple tactics, techniques, and procedures. Thompson was arrested by FBI agents at a remote US base in February 2020. She was charged with violating espionage laws a month later. In court, prosecutors argued for a 30-year sentence given the “real threats” Thompson’s leaks posed. Thompson pleaded for leniency, telling the court she didn’t shall hurt American soldiers or “do damage to our national security”. “I just wanted to possess someone to like me in my adulthood, and since I used to be desperate for that love I forgot who I used to be for a brief period of your time,” Thompson was quoted as saying by the Washington Post newspaper. District Judge John Bates gave her a shorter sentence of 23 years, saying it reflected the seriousness of the offenses, but took into consideration she was a sympathetic individual. “This case should function a transparent reminder to any or all of these entrusted with national defense information that unilaterally disclosing such information for private gain, or that of others, isn’t selfless or heroic; it’s criminal,” said Alan Kohler Jr, assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. Demers, head of the Justice Department’s national security division, said on Wednesday.
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