A translator working for the US military was charged Wednesday in Washington federal court with passing the names of US informants to people linked to Lebanon's Hezbollah.
An indictment said Mariam Taha Thompson, 61, formerly of Rochester, Minnesota, was a contract linguist with a "top secret" security clearance who began working with US Special Forces in Erbil, Iraq in mid-December.
It said that one day after US airstrikes December 29 on installations of an Iraqi Shiite militia allied with Iran, Thompson began accessing US military computer files with the identities of US sources and information they had provided.
Assistant Attorney General John Demers, the Justice Department's top national security official, called the alleged conduct “a disgrace, especially for someone serving as a contractor with the United States military. This betrayal of country and colleagues will be punished.”
After Thompson was arrested on February 27, she admitted to investigators that she passed the information on the informants, together with a warning for a Hezbollah-linked target of US military intelligence, to a Lebanese national whom she had "a romantic interest in," according to the charges.
The Lebanese national is related to a Lebanese government official and "has apparent connections to Hezbollah," the Justice Department said in a statement.
Thompson's court appearance on Wednesday, on charges that could carry life in prison, was brief and ended with her being detained until a hearing next Wednesday.
