Marwat Farhan
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The name Marwan Farhat has surfaced as the most recent Bush administration "leak". TIME Magazine's Timothy J. Burger reported on January 22, 2004, that another leak controversy is "brewing" and the "Justice Department faces new allegations about revealing the name of an informant".
- "Even as the Justice Department appeared to be going forward in the Wilson leak probe, it faced new controversy over the alleged leak of the name of a Detroit man whom government sources described to TIME as a key confidential federal terrorism informant. After going undercover in bars and elsewhere in the Arab community for the feds in Detroit, Marwan Farhat's name was revealed in a Detroit Free Press story last week that cited 'officials' as the source of information about Farhat and an internal Justice investigation of a prosecutor. Farhat -- whom the Free Press said was an illegal immigrant from an Arab country who began helping the feds after he was charged in a drug case -- fled the U.S. this week after saying he'd been shot at in Detroit on Friday morning, according to a source who spoke to Farhat. The Free Press story ran the day after Farhat was shot at, but a knowledgeable source said Farhat's name had become a poorly-kept secret in the city after leaking out a month before. 'He's an intelligence asset. He was providing information on terrorism, not just who's the local dope sellers,' said an outraged congressional aide. Justice officials in Washington and Detroit refused comment."
It was in the January 17, 2004, Detroit Free Press story "Terror case prosecutor is probed on conduct. Outcome of investigation could give the defendants a new trial" by David Ashenfelter that Farhat's name was revealed:
- "Officials said much of the [Office of Professional Responsibility] investigation focuses on [the prosecutor Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino]'s dealings with Marwan Farhat, 34, of Dearborn who was indicted in March 2001 on cocaine distribution charges.
- "Farhat, an illegal immigrant from Lebanon with two weapons convictions, spent nine months in custody awaiting trial in the drug case before Convertino arranged his release in December 2001 to become an informant in the terrorism case.
- "Farhat spent hundreds of hours at the U.S. Attorney's Office translating Arab tapes seized in a flat where three terror-case defendants lived. Officials said he also frequented bars in Dearborn to pick up information for terrorism investigators."
