Amsterdam - The Netherland's biggest-selling newspaper, De Telegraaf, is to sue the government for allegedly wiretapping four of its journalists, the daily announced Wednesday. The decision to institute legal proceedings follows a raid authorised by the public prosecutor on the home of De Telegraaf correspondent Jolande van de Graaf in June.
At a hearing on July 16 the newspaper, with the Dutch journalists' association NVJ and the National Managing Editors Association, will demand that the Dutch Secret Service (AIVD) immediately stops all wiretapping of journalists' phones on the grounds of the freedom of press and the protection of their sources.
Prior to the raid on the journalist's home, AIVD had arrested one employee and one former employee on suspicion leaking information to De Graaf about alleged secret service mistakes over the Iraq War in 2004.
In March De Telegraaf published De Graaf's story, which claimed the AIVD merely "copied" foreign intelligence information.
It failed to verify whether Saddam Hussein's regime actually possessed weapons of mass destruction, De Graaf wrote, citing anonymous AIVD sources.
The AIVD subsequently placed wiretaps on De Graaf's phones and those of three of her colleagues, according to the paper. They monitored her whereabouts "meticulously", the newspaper said.
NVJ chairman Huub Elzerman said the wiretapping was a "gross violation of the protection of sources. No journalist can now guarantee their sources full protection."
The Dutch Media Minister Ronald Plasterk told public radio EO the AIVD should not just place wiretaps "for no reason".
