Journalist Reveals: "IDF" Commander Approves Killing of WB Palestinians, He is Indicted
"Israel's" attorney general has decided to indict an "Israeli" journalist who in an investigative report revealed that top army officers had approved killings of Palestinians in the West Bank, charging him with illegal possession of classified documents.
The move against Uri Blau, a reporter with the supposed liberal "Israeli" daily "Haaretz", was the first prosecution of an "Israeli" journalist for possession of classified materials.
The "Israeli" move drew sharp criticism from civil rights advocates and prominent defense correspondents, who called it a blow to freedom of the press.
The so-called "Israeli" Justice Ministry said in an announcement Wednesday that "Blau would be charged with unauthorized possession of secret information".
Blau based his reporting on a trove of some 1,800 army documents, hundreds of them classified, that were given to him by a former soldier who copied them when she worked in the office of the chief of the army's Central Command, the regional command that includes the West Bank.
Blau for his part has kept silent on instructions from his lawyers and was quoted by his newspaper on Thursday as saying that he had "acted to fulfill my mission as a journalist."
A group of prominent military correspondents published a statement warning that the step against Blau "could turn every journalist into a potential criminal, or silence the media, make the military establishment opaque and immune to criticism, effectively harming democracy."
Source: Haartz daily, Edited by moqawama.org
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