This article is more than 8 years old

This article is more than 8 years old

An investigative reporter who faced indictment for exposing classified military documents has reached a plea bargain with the Israeli government that will allow him to avoid jail, his newspaper and the justice ministry have said.

A government spokesman announced in May that it would charge Uri Blau, who works for the liberal Haaretz newspaper, with unauthorised possession of state secrets, stirring up fears of a crusade to stifle the press.

Journalists had expressed concern that charges against Blau would make reporters nervous to do their jobs for fear they might end up in jail.

Blau would have faced up to seven years in prison if convicted. Instead, he will be sentenced to four months, which can be commuted to community service, the ministry said. He will admit to holding secret intelligence without intent to harm national security, Haaretz reported.

The newspaper did not immediately issue a statement and Blau did not return a call for comment.

Blau obtained more than 2,000 military documents, including operational plans and lists of potential Palestinian assassination targets, from a former soldier who copied them from army computers. About 700 were classified.

He published some of the information in investigative articles, including in a 2007 story alleging the army had planned to kill wanted Palestinian militants in violation of a court order to arrest them alive if possible.

As required under Israeli law, Blau submitted his stories to the country's military censor before they were published. The articles were approved as they contained no information deemed dangerous to state security.

Still, the justice ministry announced that Blau would be indicted because "the potential for damage in the unprotected possession of the documents was enormous". It concluded the gravity of his conduct outweighed the public's right to know the information.

Anat Kamm, the soldier who leaked the material to him, was sentenced last year to four and a half years in prison on espionage charges.

After Blau's arrest in 2009, Haaretz kept him abroad for about a year to avoid prosecution. He returned to Israel after agreeing to hand over the documents.