[The court in Haarlem]

The state prosecutor opened the case against former AIVD officers Helene S. and Hans H. yesterday by demanding that they serve three and two years in prison respectively for leaking state secrets to the Telegraaf. The two are supposed to have been the source for the infamous Telegraaf article ‘AIVD faalde rond Irak’ that was published on 28 March 2009, since one of the journalists responsible for the article, Jolande van der Graaf, had visited them at home prior to that date. While a subsequent search of de Graaf’s home did not produce any suspect materials, a search of the home of Helene S. did, namely five documents, but none of them were related to the Iraq-Telegraaf case.

Testifying as a defendent, Helene S. claimed that she did not know how those documents came to be in her house. When questioned, the journalists didn’t offer any further information and refused to answer about their source(s). Speaking for the defendants, lawyer Inez Weski spoke out that the state prosecutor’s office had decided very quickly that the leak had come from these individuals. To prove the point that there was actually nothing in the article that could not have been found from material already in the public domain, she handed the prosecutor two boxes full of possible sources that the journalists could have used.

The case has all the markings of ‘making an example’. The prosecutor admitted that the leaked information wasn’t exactly “world news,” but it was more a matter of principle – “The leaking of state secrets is indeed extraordinarily serious.” He also escalated the proceedings by stating that if such leaks occur, the AIVD will lose important contacts because they will fear that their information can potentially end up “on the street.” The very ability of the service itself was therefore being brought into question. A minor case is therefore being expanded into a major breach of security.

Where this will go depends a lot on how far Weski is able to shift attention to other possible sources of the leak – such as the Ministry for General Affairs. Without this the lack of a water-tight defence could prove a problem. We will have to wait and see if she succeeds in hauling Minister-President Balkenende into the courtroom.