Anat Kamm, who was sentenced last month to four and a half years in prison after being convicted in February of stealing and possessing classified documents during her military service and passing them on to a journalist, filed an appeal to the Supreme Court over her sentence on Wednesday. On Oct. 31, the Tel Aviv District Court ordered Kamm to serve 54 months in prison, with an additional year and a half suspended sentence, for having stolen more than 2,000 highly classified documents while serving in the Israel Defense Forces. Kamm was arrested in December 2009 by the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) on suspicion of stealing and leaking a slew of documents while she was working as a clerk for then GOC Central Command Maj. Gen. Yair Naveh. Seven hundred of the stolen documents were designated as classified or top secret. She was immediately placed under house arrest and a gag order was imposed on the affair. Kamm passed the documents on to Ha'aretz reporter Uri Blau, who used them to write a 2008 investigative report, approved by the military censor, on the IDF's apparent disregard for a 2006 High Court order about targeted killings of Palestinians. The report prompted the ire of then Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, who ordered an immediate investigation into the source. In the appeal, which is more than 50 pages long, Kamm's attorney, Ilan Bombach, mentioned several similar cases in which the offenders received lighter sentences for more serious crimes. Bombach referred to the cases of Brig. Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Yaakov, who was convicted in May 2002 of threatening national security and given a two-year suspended sentence, as well as Tali Fahima, who was sentenced to three years in jail after being convicted of maintaining contact with Zakaria Zubeidi, chief of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in Jenin. In her appeal, Kamm says she was subjected to a public lynching, in the same manner as former president and convicted rapist Moshe Katsav. "The only other case of public hostility and pre-trial judgement that can be compared to this one is the case of Moshe Katsav," Kamm writes. According to Kamm, the District Court failed to take into account the two years she had already spent under house arrest, her expression of regret over the crime, and the fact that she admitted guilt at the outset of the investigation. In the appeal, Bombach also mentions Blau, the reporter to whom Kamm transferred the stolen documents. "Blau is an accomplice to this crime. Without him, the crime would have been diminished. He failed to warn her of the illegality of passing on such documents," Bombach writes. In an interview with Israel Hayom on Tuesday, Bombach said, "Kamm did not intend to threaten Israel's security, and her sentence was too severe." According to Bombach, if Kamm had wanted to endanger Israel's security, she would have passed the documents on to a foreign journalist who would not have been subject to Israeli censorship laws.
Anat Kamm appeals sentence, says she was 'lynched' like Katsav
Anat Kamm, sentenced to four and a half years for stealing classified documents during her IDF service and passing them on to a reporter, says punishment is too harsh • "Kamm did not intend to threaten Israel's security," her lawyer says.
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