WASHINGTON — A Minnesota girl who labored as a translator for the navy in Iraq was charged on Wednesday with offering extremely categorized data to
WASHINGTON — A Minnesota girl who labored as a translator for the navy in Iraq was charged on Wednesday with offering extremely categorized data to an Iran-backed militia group. Prosecutors stated she intensified her espionage as tensions between america and Iran elevated in latest months.
Prosecutors stated the contractor, Mariam Taha Thompson, 61, revealed to a Lebanese man with ties to Hezbollah the names of international informants and particulars of the data they offered to america. The identities of such informants are among the many authorities’s most intently held secrets and techniques, and legislation enforcement officers stated Ms. Thompson endangered the lives of the sources in addition to these of navy personnel.
The officers advised that the potential lack of categorized data was grave and that the prosecution was one of the critical latest counterintelligence circumstances they’d seen. A number of prime nationwide safety prosecutors in addition to the U.S. legal professional for the District of Columbia, Timothy Shea, appeared in courtroom on Wednesday as Ms. Thompson made an preliminary look earlier than a decide, demonstrating the significance of the case.
“If true, this conduct is a shame, particularly for somebody serving as a contractor with america navy,” John C. Demers, the assistant legal professional basic for nationwide safety, stated in a press release. “This betrayal of nation and colleagues can be punished.”
The recruitment of a navy contractor with entry to such vital secrets and techniques reveals the power of the intelligence operations of Iran and its proxy forces. American officers have lengthy warned that Tehran’s intelligence work shouldn’t be underestimated.
In interviews with the F.B.I., Ms. Thompson admitted to investigators that she illegally shared categorized data with the Lebanese official, in line with courtroom papers. Ms. Thompson appeared in courtroom wearing a pink cardigan, her gray-streaked hair in a bun, however was not shackled. The decide ordered her held till a detention listening to on March 11.
She faces three expenses of violating espionage legal guidelines. Under the statute, she may resist life in jail and presumably the dying penalty if the data she revealed led to the dying of any of the informants.
Ms. Thompson was residing in Erbil, Iraq, engaged on contract as a linguist. As tensions between america and Iran elevated within the remaining days of December, investigators found, Ms. Thompson’s exercise on categorized methods did as effectively. For the following six weeks, she accessed secret authorities information that contained the true names and pictures of American intelligence sources and authorities cables that outlined the data they offered to their handlers.
Ms. Thompson’s purported espionage was found Dec. 30, days after American airstrikes on Hezbollah’s Iraqi arm and shortly earlier than the killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani of Iran in a Jan. three drone assault that was a critical escalation of President Trump’s rising confrontation with Iran.
The suspected leaks of categorized data got here at a important time when Iranian proxy forces, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, have been in search of methods to retaliate for the killing of Common Suleimani, the architect of almost each vital operation by Iranian intelligence and navy forces over the previous 20 years.
Investigators searched Ms. Thompson’s residing quarters on Feb. 19 and found a handwritten be aware below her mattress itemizing the names of informants. The be aware, written in Arabic, additionally included a warning to a navy goal affiliated with Hezbollah whom prosecutors didn’t identify and a request for the informants’ telephones to be monitored.
Ms. Thompson informed investigators that she offered categorized data by memorizing it, writing it down, then displaying the be aware to the Lebanese man after they spoke by video chat on her cell phone.
The person took a screenshot of their video chat that confirmed her displaying a handwritten be aware with the identify of two informants, courtroom papers confirmed. Investigators additionally discovered footage of the Lebanese Hezbollah chief, Hassan Nasrallah, on the person’s cellphone.
The disclosures by Ms. Thompson didn’t have an effect on the timing of the drone strike on Common Suleimani, suggesting that he was not the goal that she offered details about to the person. In response to authorities paperwork, Ms. Thompson had “a romantic curiosity” within the Lebanese man with whom she shared the categorized secrets and techniques.
The person’s nephew labored for the Lebanese authorities’s inside ministry, in line with court documents launched Wednesday. Whereas the present minister of the inside just isn’t a member of Hezbollah, he has good relations with the group. Hezbollah is a part of the Lebanese authorities, and america considers it a terrorist group.
The American navy has taken steps to guard the informants whose identities Ms. Thompson revealed, in line with a authorities official. It was unclear why their figuring out…