Prosecutor Adv. Hadas Forer-Gafni yesterday asked the Tel Aviv District Court to sentence former journalist Anat Kam to several years in prison, after the court approved the plea bargain Kam signed with the State Prosecutor's Office. In the plea bargain, Kam admits to, and will be convicted of, the charges of serious espionage (collection and possession of secret information), and intentionally delivering this information to third parties. Two counts of seeking to harm state security were dismissed.
The revised indictment charges Kam with collecting secret and sensitive documents while serving as the head of the office of then Central Command commander Major General Yair Naveh, storing the information in a special file on her computer, and, close to her discharge from the IDF, transferring the information to two CDs. The indictment says that Kam acted out of "ideological motives, and to publish the documents".
The documents included 2,085 files, arranged in 11 folders, as well as an additional 625 files, whose classification included "Top Secret", "Secret", "Confidential", "Restricted", and "Personal".
In September 2008, after offering the documents to "Yediot Ahronot" journalist Yossi Yehoshua, Kam gave 1,500 documents to "Haaretz" journalist Uri Blau.
The maximum penalty for the crimes Kam admitted to in the plea bargain is 7-15 years in prison. The court will hear the arguments for the penalty in two months.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on February 7, 2011
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