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Sunday, October 30, 2011

Former IDF soldier sentenced to 4.5 years for leaking documents to Haaretz

Anat Kamm at the Tel Aviv District Court, October 30, 2011

Anat Kamm was originally charged with espionage for collecting documents from the IDF and handing them writer Uri Blau in Israeli 'wikileaks' scandal; her final conviction was reached in a plea bargain.

The Tel Aviv District Court on Sunday sentenced former Israel Defense Forces soldier Anat Kamm to 54 months in jail and another year-and-a-half suspended sentence, after she was convicted in February of collecting, holding and passing on classified information without authorization.

The conviction was obtained under a plea bargain that reduced the charges. Originally, Kamm had been charged with espionage.

The two years that Kamm spent under house arrest will not be configured into the sentence issued on Sunday.

Kamm stole some 2,000 documents from the office of then-GOC Central Command Yair Naveh, where she worked during her army service.

Among the documents were 700 marked classified or top secret. Kamm passed the documents to Haaretz reporter Uri Blau.

Some of the documents appeared to show that senior Israel Defense Forces officers had violated High Court of Justice rulings by approving the assassination of wanted men in the West Bank even when it would have been possible to arrest them.

In November 2008, Blau wrote an expose based on these documents.

While the report was approved by the military censor, it spurred a search for his source. Kamm was arrested in early 2010.

Passing on classified material without authorization carries a sentence of up to 15 years in jail. Holding such material is punishable by up to seven years.

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