Israeli leak suspect held in secret house arrest

Israeli leak suspect held in secret house arrest

For the past three months, a 23-year-old Israeli journalist has been under a secret house arrest over charges that she leaked classified information suggesting that the Israel military violated a legal ruling on killings of militants in the West Bank. An unusual gagging order preventing reporting of the case by the media in Israel will be challenged next month by Channel Ten TV and the newspaper Haaretz. The charges against Anat Kam, which could carry a heavy prison sentence if she is convicted, are believed to accuse her of photocopying classified documents during her period of military service. Although the charges are not thought to specify a particular media outlet or article, there has been speculation that they relate to an investigation by the journalist Uri Blau in Haaretz magazine in November 2008. That report suggested that one of two Islamic Jihad militants killed in Jenin in June 2007 had been targeted for assassination in apparent violation of a ruling issued six months earlier by Israel's supreme court. Ms Kam was arrested more than a year after Mr Blau's report was published. At the time of her arrest, she was working for the news service Walla, which until recently was owned by Haaretz. (The Independent)