2023-10-31 19:39:35
Does his book on the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI) threaten “the fundamental interests of the Nation”? The Paris Court of Appeal has rejected requests to cancel the prosecution of journalist Alex Jordanov, sources close to the case said on Tuesday. Prosecutions were also confirmed for a former police officer suspected of being his source.
The journalist, briefly hostage in Iraq in 2004, is accused of having dangerously lifted the veil, in his book “The shadow wars of the DGSI” (Nouveau Monde éditions), on the internal kitchen of domestic intelligence.
Alex Jordanov was indicted at the end of June 2022 by an investigating judge of the Paris court for various offenses, including appropriation and disclosure of defense secrets.
Two former police officers, including Malik Naït-Liman, designated by the investigation as its sources, were also indicted for offenses of breaching national defense secrets. Malik Naït-Liman is suspected of having transmitted sensitive information from the DGSI to the journalist, some of which was classified.
The 64-year-old journalist and the 45-year-old former DGSI police officer had applied to the investigating chamber of the Court of Appeal to obtain the annulment of their indictment and other procedural acts. .
Violation of confidentiality of sources justified?
During the hearing on September 27, William Bourdon, Alex Jordanov’s lawyer, raised in particular “the violation of the right to freedom of expression guaranteed by Article 10 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and fundamental freedoms (CESDH)” and article 2 of the 1881 law on freedom of the press, according to the decision rendered on October 25 by the investigating chamber.
But the court considered that “all of the coercive measures” taken during the preliminary investigation and then the judicial investigation, “some of which actually infringed the confidentiality of the journalists’ sources, were however all justified by the existence of an overriding imperative of public interest” in connection with “the preservation of national defense secrecy and the safeguarding of the fundamental interests of the Nation”.
The indictment of Alex Jordanov is justified by the commission of offenses supported by “testimonies collected, elements found during searches, banking and telephone operations, audio recordings found on Malik Nait-Liman’s dictaphone”, considered the judges.
“A threat to journalists”
The decision of the Court of Appeal “is absolutely contrary to consistent case law of the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights) and a threat to the duty of information of journalists,” reacted William Bourdon.
“None of the inherently exceptional conditions provided for by the European judge were met to undermine the secrecy of the sources” and “there was no overriding imperative of public interest”, he said.
“The hunt for sources having been validated, an appeal to the Court of Cassation will be regularized,” added the journalist’s advice.
For Vincent Brengarth, lawyer for the former police officer, “it is completely incomprehensible that the Court of Appeal does not sanction the real aspiration of data carried out by the investigating services of the DGSI and the unfair nature of the investigations carried out”. The public prosecutor’s office requested the dismissal of the requests.
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