A former soldier was indicted on Thursday September 21 in Paris, notably for embezzlement and disclosure of national defense secrets, in an investigation into the sources of a press article evoking a French intelligence program in Egypt, announced to the Agence France-Presse the Paris prosecutor’s office.

This ex-soldier seems to be considered by the courts as one of the sources of the article published at the end of 2021 by the media Disclose, and in particular signed by the journalist Ariane Lavrilleux, who was released, without prosecution at this stage, after being held in custody. view of almost forty hours.

The Disclose journalist was outraged that a “new milestone” had been taken against freedom of information, denouncing a “misuse of justice services”. “If we do not protect sources, it is the end of journalism,” insisted Ariane Lavrilleux during a press conference organized at the premises of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in Paris.

“An extreme violation of freedom of information”

The investigative journalist recounted how, on Tuesday at 6 a.m., “nine intelligence agents and magistrates usually in charge of the fight against terrorism arrived” at her home in Marseille, with suitcases of “cybersurveillance software” “to suck data” from his phones, his computers, his USB sticks.

“An investigating judge was present,” and Ms. Lavrilleux learned on this occasion that she “had been placed under surveillance for some time,” feeling then treated as a “delinquent.” “Usually, they are there to track down [perpetrators of] attacks. For months, these brilliant minds were mobilized to track down a journalist, her sources (…) It is an extreme violation of the freedom to inform and the protection of[s] journalistic sources,” she repeated. .

During her interviews at the police station, she invoked her “right to silence”, when the agents asked her “since when” she had worked for Disclose, trying “to find out how we could have obtained confidential information”. For the journalist, this “arrest, after attacks which have multiplied in recent years, mainly under the presidency of Emmanuel Macron”, against freedom of the press, shows that “we have reached a new milestone”.

“We cannot do anything in the name of national defense. Precisely because we are not in Egypt,” she judged. According to her, his arrest “showed that we are disturbing and that we are necessary so that the silence on arms sales to dictatorships stops”.

Scandal « Sirli »

The Paris prosecutor’s office recalled having received two complaints filed by the Ministry of the Armed Forces in January 2021 and November 2021. These complaints against X were “following the publication of articles in the media Disclose, including documents and [of] photographs bearing the words “defense confidential” as well as elements likely to allow the identification of intelligence agents,” specified the public prosecutor.

Disclose had claimed, in an article published in November 2021, that the French intelligence mission “Sirli”, started in February 2016 for the benefit of Egypt in the name of the fight against terrorism, had been hijacked by the Egyptian state which was using information collected to carry out airstrikes on suspected smugglers’ vehicles on the Egyptian-Libyan border.

The Paris prosecutor’s office specified that, following the opening of a preliminary investigation at the end of 2021, “the investigations were aimed at implicating a member of the Ministry of the Armed Forces”.

A judicial investigation was then opened, on July 21, 2022, targeting several offenses including misappropriation and disclosure of a national defense secret by its depositary, but also appropriation or disclosure of a national defense secret or revelation of information about an agent intelligence.

The Paris prosecutor’s office clarified that “the content of the investigations remains covered by the secrecy of the investigation”.