Police Chief Defends Practice of Agents Posing As Journalists

Police Inspector-General David Kraus on Tuesday defended police officers who camouflage themselves as members of the press, but said the practice would henceforth be used in the administered territories with discretion.

Kraus said there was nothing illegal about police officers who patrol troubled areas in cars marked with signs reading “press.” But he said that from now on, the practice would only be undertaken with his personal permission after police proved it was essential.

The police chief met Tuesday with representatives of the news media, following complaints by a foreign television camera crew that it had filmed plainclothes police officers in East Jerusalem last week laying an ambush to catch stone-throwers by putting a sign on their car that bore the English word “press.”

The undercover officers were later ordered by their superiors to remove the sign. But they substituted the “press” sign with one reading “TV.”

Both the Jerusalem Journalists Association and the Foreign Press Association protested the use of press identification, which they said endangered journalists working in dangerous areas.

Kraus told a television interviewer Monday that the police were not “impersonating journalists, as they had not presented themselves as such to anybody.

“They merely camouflaged their vehicle. And there is nothing illegal in that,” he said. “Police will continue to use that cover in their peacekeeping duties,” he stressed.

The journalists association immediately announced it would distribute to its members English signs reading “police on duty,” which they would display on their cars.

Adopting a more conciliatory tone Tuesday, Kraus told the representatives of the news media that he recognizes the importance of a working press in a free democracy, in which journalists should be allowed to carry out their essential duties without hindrance.