The Lebanese-US military translator, Mariam Taha Thompson, was sentenced to 23 years in prison for releasing classified information to a person linked to Hezbollah.
Thompson, 63, admitted last March to transmitting classified information to help a foreign government. She worked as an interpreter with the US military between 2006 and 2020.
Thompson became a US citizen in 1993 and was arrested by federal authorities in late February 2020 in Erbil.
Prosecutors said Thompson passed the names of US intelligence assets to the Lebanese citizen she was involved with. He is believed to have passed the classified information to Hezbollah.
Washington designated Hezbollah as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997.
According to court documents, the unnamed Lebanese national, who was described as “rich and well-connected,” claimed that he received a ring from Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
After the US airstrike that killed Iranian Revolutionary Guards - Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in December 2019, the Lebanese citizen asked Thompson to provide Hezbollah with information about human assets who helped the United States target Soleimani, according to public prosecutors.
Over six weeks, leading up to her arrest in February 2020, Thompson provided the Lebanese national with the identities of at least 10 targets and at least 20 US targets and multiple tactics, techniques, and procedures, according to the Justice Department.
Head of the Justice Department's National Security Division John Demers noted that 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.”