An Israeli court in Jerusalem ordered the release of American journalist Jeremy Loffredo, 4 days after he was arrested by Israeli police on charges of revealing the location of Iranian missiles in the attack on Israel earlier this month, in a video clip on YouTube.
Journalist Loffredo works for the US-based news website Grayson, which has leftist tendencies, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which reported the news. According to Haaretz, the journalist was interrogated “on suspicion of providing information to the enemy and assisting him in times of war.”
Although the Israeli court in Jerusalem ordered the release of the American journalist, it prevented him from leaving Israel for the next nine days.
Loffredo was arrested last Tuesday after a video report he uploaded to YouTube showed locations where Iranian missiles landed, including their proximity to security-related Israeli facilities such as the Nevatim base and Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv.
His lawyer, Leah Tsemel, said that the images that appear in the video are based on publicly available sources, including from a report on “PBS,” the American public broadcasting system.
She added that she told the court that anyone who wants to help the enemy or transmit intelligence during wartime will not disseminate it while in Israel.
The Jerusalem Magistrate Court initially extended Loffredo’s detention for one day, but Judge Zion Srari ordered his release at a later hearing, after Ynet correspondent Liran Tamari said that the military censorship had agreed to publish a video. Loffredo as part of her own report on the arrest.
The Israeli police appealed the matter under the pretext that the American journalist refused to give investigators access to his phone. However, the court rejected the appeal.
