A former IDF soldier currently indicted for espionage told an Israeli court that she took classified documents to expose war crimes, Ha’aretz reported.
Anat Kamm, an Israeli journalist and former soldier, allegedly passed off classified documents she had access to during her Israel Defense Forces service to Ha’aretz reporter Uri Blau. According to Ha’aretz, Kamm told police that the IDF committed war crimes and that she took the documents to expose them.
“I thought that by exposing these [materials] I would make a change,” Kamm is quoted as saying in the police documents. “It was important for me to bring the IDF’s policy to public knowledge.”
Separately, Kamm’s attorney, Avigdor Feldman, said Kamm is ready to relinquish her journalistic immunity as Blau’s source and is calling on him to return to Israel from London with all of the documents she provided him.
Kamm may be prosecuted on the most serious espionage charge: passing on classified information with intent of harming state security. A guilty conviction carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. She also faces a lesser charge of gathering and possessing classified materials with intent to harm state security, which carries a 15-year maximum sentence. — jta