Haaretz reporter convicted of holding secret documents

A journalist accused of holding secret documents was found guilty by the Tel Aviv’s Magistrate’s Court as part of a plea bargain Tuesday morning.

Haaretz reporter Uri Blau pleaded guilty to holding secret material but without an intention to damage the state. According to the terms of the plea, he will likely be sentenced to four months imprisonment that will be commuted to community service.

The sentence still must be approved by the body that oversees community service sentences.

“In retrospect, I could have acted differently in various points along the way,” Blau said. “I worked to inform the public as a journalist and a person who is concerned with state security.”

According to the indictment that was brought at the beginning of July, Blau had in his possession thousands of operational documents, including secret and top secret material. The indictment claimed that he did not fulfill his duty, and later his commitment, to return the documents, Maariv reported. Blau received the documents from former IDF soldier Anat Kamm.

During her army service in 2006, Kamm served as an assistant in the office of Maj. Gen. Yair Naveh, then commander of Israel’s Central Command. Kamm copied thousands of classified documents from his office and then passed them on to Blau after she had left the army.

In 2008, Blau published details from the documents in a series of articles that led investigators to Kamm’s door, and in 2010 she was arrested for espionage.

In February 2011 Kamm entered into a plea bargain and pleaded guilty to leaking state secrets in return for not being charged with damaging national security.

In October 2011, she was sentenced to four and a half years in prison and 18 months’ probation.

Blau originally fled to London when the case broke, but later agreed to return to Israel and return the documents. Investigators later accused him of not returning all the papers.