2023-09-21 04:47:51
She spent the night in the cell. Journalist Ariane Lavrilleux was placed in police custody for forty-eight hours at the Marseille Police Station, as part of a judicial investigation opened by the Paris prosecutor’s office in July 2022 for compromising the secret of National Defense and disclosures of military identities, entrusted to the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI). She came out free in the evening, this Wednesday. The affair arouses the indignation of the profession which denounces “an unprecedented attack on the freedom of the press”.
What is he accused of?
According to Disclose, the DGSI accuses the journalist of “having disclosed confidential defense documents relating to France’s arms sales to foreign countries, some of which were used against civilian populations.” In the sights of the French secret services, five items signed or co-signed by Ariane Lavrilleux. Among these, one concerns the French intelligence mission “Sirli”, launched in February 2016 in Egypt in the name of the fight against terrorism.
???? Custody of@AriaLavrilleux : according to our information, DGSI investigators accuse our journalist of having signed 5 articles on French arms sales abroad, published by @Disclose_ngo since 2019
1/4— Disclose (@Disclose_ngo) September 20, 2023
The investigation series « Egypt Papers » revealed in 2021 that the Egyptian government of Al-Sisi used information collected by French intelligence to carry out a “campaign of arbitrary executions”. Air strikes on vehicles of suspected traffickers were thus carried out on the Egyptian-Libyan border, and not on jihadists as planned, causing numerous collateral victims among civilians.
These attacks would have been carried out “with the complicity of the French State”, Disclose had asserted, relying on “several hundred documents classified as defense confidential”. Despite warnings from certain officials about the excesses of the operation, the French authorities would not have called the mission into question.
Following this publication, the French Ministry of the Armed Forces filed a complaint for “violation of national defense secrecy”. A preliminary investigation was opened in November 2021 then an investigating judge was appointed in the summer of 2022. It is in this context that the home and computer tools of Ariane Lavrilleux were searched on Tuesday and she was placed in police custody. The objective of this “unacceptable attack on press freedom” is “to identify our sources which made it possible to reveal the Sirli military operation”, denounced Disclose.
What the law says ?
According to article 413-11-1 of the Penal Code, any person not authorized for defense secrecy who brings to the attention of the public an element classified as defense secret can be punished “with five years of imprisonment and a fine of 75,000 euros”. The journalist’s sources risk seven years in prison and a fine of 100,000 euros.
However, as a journalist, Ariane Lavrilleux is protected by article 2 of the law of July 29, 1881 on freedom of the press which provides that “the secrecy of journalists’ sources is protected in the exercise of their mission of informing the public” and that a direct or indirect attack “can in no case consist of an obligation for the journalist to reveal his sources. In other words, “the journalist has the right not to speak”, explains to Parisian Me Antoine Gitton, lawyer specializing in press law.
Other texts also protect journalists, such as article 10 of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), texts from the code of criminal procedure or internal security allowing, for example, journalists to refuse to speak out before the courts and the police and refuse to send them files.
Aware of the risks of putting oneself “in violation of the law”, the editorial staff of Disclose explained in one of the articles in the investigative series why she had still decided to reveal information classified as “confidential-defense”. These “are of major public interest” and must be revealed “in the name of a fundamental principle in democracy: the right to information”, justified the media, adding that “defense secrecy cannot be invoked to cover a campaign of arbitrary executions against civilians.”
What does she risk?
For the moment, “we are at the investigation stage, it is not a question of determining whether she is guilty or not but of determining whether there are sufficient charges which justify her referral to a trial court” , explains Me Antoine Gitton. At the end of her police custody, Ariane Lavrilleux could go free or be referred to the public prosecutor. The latter could then issue an indictment. “I am free, thank you very much for your support”, published the journalist in the evening, on the social network X.
Me Virginie Marquet, the journalist’s lawyer, as well as a source close to the investigation confirmed to AFP this release from police custody, without prosecution at this stage. The second source specified that a former soldier also detained since Tuesday was going to be presented to a magistrate with a view to possible prosecution.
The investigation phase that would follow could end “with an order dismissing the case” or with “a referral to a trial court”. In the event of a trial, “there is a possibility that she will be sentenced to criminal prison sentences”. However, believes Mr. Gitton, “I am not sure that the State wants to take the risk of appearing as the one that is going to pillory a journalist to protect an undemocratic regime.”
This is not the first time that journalists have been interviewed by the DGSI. In 2019, after revelations on the export of French weapons used in Yemen, and in 2021, concerning other arbitrary executions in Egypt, other Disclose journalists were interviewed by the French secret services. Reporters from Le Monde and Quotidien were also interviewed. On the sale of arms to Yemen, “after a year of investigation to identify our sources, the case was finally closed,” recalls Disclose on his website.
Wave of support and indignation
This affair sparked a wave of support from various journalists’ unions, editorial offices and press freedom organizations in France. but also abroad, as well as certain political parties. The profession as a whole denounced “an attack on freedom of the press”, “an unacceptable obstacle to the freedom to inform” and a “denial of democracy” a few weeks before the General States of Information promised by the Elysium.
Disclose has also called for donations to ensure the defense of the journalist. A support committee for Ariane Lavrilleux gathered Tuesday evening in front of the Marseille Police headquarters. Other gatherings took place this Wednesday evening, in Paris, Marseille and Lyon.
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