The Dutch intelligence service AIVD has been cleared of accusations of illegally tapping the telephones of two newspaper journalists. The independent Review Committee on the Intelligence and Security Services judged that the tapping was appropriate, but adds that it was premature. The committee report has been submitted to Interior Minister Guusje ter Horst who is responsible for the AIVD.

The case was triggered when mass-circulation daily de Telegraaf published secret AIVD documents relating to Iraq and to the Dalai Lama. The Review Committee confirmed that there are good reasons that these documents were declared state secrets, which justified the tapping, but not its timing.

Since there were no indications after the Iraq publications that further documents would be published, no journalists' phones should have been tapped. Instead, the protection of journalists' sources, which is common practice in the Netherlands, should have been the primary concern at the time.

Exceptional powers
Once de Telegraaf had also published the Dalai Lama papers however, the use of exceptional powers became appropriate, the committee says in its report to Minister Ter Horst. The minister said in a statement that she is endorsing the committee's findings.

The two journalists whose telephone conversations were recorded by AIVD, Jolande van der Graaf and Joost de Haas have not reacted publicly. On its website de Telegraaf headlines gleefully that "Minister Ter Horst put a foot wrong", emphasising that it was Ms Ter Horst who approved of the tapping in April.

The paper's editor Sjuul Paradijs is demanding an apology from the minister because of the violation of press freedom after the first publication of the Iraq papers, when the tapping was unnecessary according to the Review Commission.

Front pages reporting on leaked secret documents (Photos: telegraaf.nl)