The story of the American spy, Maryam Taha Thompson

The story of the American spy, Maryam Taha Thompson

 

A former US military translator named "Maryam Taha Thompson" (63 years old), of Lebanese descent, has admitted her guilt of leaking classified information to a Lebanese citizen believed to have a relationship with the Lebanese "Hezbollah", according to a report published by Al-Hurra channel, quoting the Voice of America website.  America".

 Thompson, who worked as a contract translator for the US military from 2006 to 2020, pleaded guilty to "providing national defense information to assist a foreign government."

 Sentencing is scheduled for June 23, with Thompson facing a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

 Maryam Taha Thompson, who was born in Lebanon and became a US citizen in 1993, was arrested in the US Special Operations Base in Erbil, Iraq, in February 2020.

 US prosecutors say that Thompson used her top-secret statement to pass on the names of US intelligence agents to a Lebanese citizen with whom she has a romantic relationship and is believed to be sharing information with Hezbollah, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States since 1997.

 According to court documents, the unnamed Lebanese national, who was described as "wealthy and well-connected," claimed that he received a ring from Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and that he had a nephew who works for the Lebanese Ministry of Interior.

 After the US air strike that killed the commander of the Quds Force in the Iranian “Revolutionary Guard” Qassem Soleimani in January 2020, the Lebanese citizen asked Thompson to provide the pro-Iranian “Hezbollah” with information about the human assets that helped the United States target Soleimani,  According to prosecutors.

 Over the course of the six weeks prior to her arrest at the end of February 2020, Thompson provided the Lebanese citizen with the identities of 10 secret individuals and at least 20 US targets and multiple tactics, techniques, and procedures, according to the Justice Department.

 Assistant US Attorney John C. Demers said in a statement that "Thompson put the lives of US military personnel and other personnel supporting the United States in a combat zone at risk by passing classified information to a person she knew was linked to the Lebanese Hezbollah."

 The US Department of Justice announced, on Wednesday, the issuance of a 23-year prison sentence against Maryam Taha Thompson, 62, who previously served as a contractor with the US Department of Defense, or what is known as the “Pentagon.”

 And the US Department of Justice indicated in a statement on its official website that Maryam Taha, in her statement and plea of ​​guilt on March 23, admitted that she believed that confidential national defense information that she passed on to a Lebanese citizen would be handed over to the Lebanese Hezbollah, an organization listed on the lists of foreign terrorist organizations.

 And the Ministry of Justice clarified in its statement that, according to court documents, Maryam Taha, who worked under an oral contract in a US military facility outside the country and was confidant and had a high-level security clearance from the US government, admitted that in 2017, she began communicating with her co-conspirator using video chats on a text messaging application.  And a safe voice before she develops a romantic relationship with him.

 The US Department added that Maryam Taha learned that the conspirator had a relative from a family member working in the Lebanese Ministry of the Interior, and that the conspirator claimed that he had received a ring from Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary-General of the Lebanese Hezbollah.

 The American Justice noted that in December 2019, while Maryam Taha was in charge of one of the Special Operations Task Force facilities in Iraq, the United States launched a series of air strikes in Iraq targeting the Hezbollah Brigades, and these strikes culminated on January 3, 2020.  And resulted in the killing of the commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Major General Qassem Soleimani, as well as the founder of the Hezbollah Brigades in Iraq, Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis.

 After Soleimani’s death, the conspirator began asking Maryam Taha to provide them with information about the human origins that helped the United States target Soleimani. Maryam Taha admitted that she understood that “these” were Lebanese Hezbollah, including an unnamed high-ranking military commander, according to  Statement by the US Department of Justice.

 It is said that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, or what is known as "FBI", had found a note written in Arabic hidden inside Maryam Taha's bed, in which he wrote 8 names of intelligence sources, according to court documents previously disclosed.