- September 4, 2026
- 3:38 pm
- World News
Israel has for the first time allowed it to be reported that a citizen of the country is accused of actions under the direction of foreign intelligence structures and influence activities. At the same time, the court kept the name, the name of the intelligence, the nature of the contacts, and the alleged assignments closed – against the backdrop of a story that has been discussed for a month, this creates an extremely unusual situation.
Author: R.Verter
One permitted formula and four prohibitions
On September 4, 2026, the State Prosecutor’s Office filed an indictment against an Israeli citizen in the Central District Court and requested that he be kept in custody until the end of the process. The investigation was conducted by the SHABAK and the police. The permitted wording states that the accused acted under the direction of foreign intelligence agencies and participated in ‘influence activities.’
The court allowed this to be published after an appeal by journalists, but kept the name, personal data, affiliation with a foreign service, the nature of the contact, and specific assignments closed. This boundary is mandatory for our text: the Israeli court has not yet officially allowed the publication of the accused’s name specifically in the context of today’s indictment. It is not allowed to associate the surname with the accusation as an established fact. The prohibition applies precisely where the information of the new indictment begins.
What twenty days give if the surname is removed
The man was detained after arriving at Ben Gurion about a month ago. For the first 20 days, he was prohibited from meeting with a lawyer. The investigation was conducted by a narrow police group, the case was controlled by State Prosecutor Amit Aisman and Government Legal Advisor Gali Baarav-Miara. The defense is represented by Inna Lebedinskaya-Katz.
It is easy to mix two chronologies here, so we separated them. For today’s unnamed accused, only ‘about a month’ has been officially published. In the public story, the arrival date is known – August 2. From August 2 to September 4, 33 days pass; 20 days make up just over 60% of such a period. This comparison shows the scale of the closed phase but does not establish the identity of the accused.
The August line exists separately
In parallel, since the beginning of August, the story of Artem Kirpichenko has been publicly discussed. On August 5, NANews wrote in detail about his detention after arriving from Yerevan, his biography, service in the IDF, studies at the Hebrew University, and subsequent life in Russia. At that time, the reason for the detention was not officially named.
On August 29, we returned to this story after the Russian Human Rights Council appealed to the UN. The Russian side allowed for political persecution ‘for views,’ although it had not seen the case materials. Even then, the defense reported that a prosecutor’s declaration was expected on September 1, and then the case would go to the district court. September 4 was indeed named as the date of the next procedural step.
Iran, conference, and the boundary of the permissible
Kirpichenko has a separate biographical detail: in 2018, he visited Iran. His acquaintances claimed that after that, he still came to Israel without problems. The very fact of the trip is publicly known, but it cannot be linked to the current accusation: the court did not disclose the country, service, or content of the alleged contacts.
There is also a story with a trip to Israel in August. Family representatives said that Kirpichenko came for a conference; later, they claimed that the municipality of the alleged venue was not aware of the event. The version of a ‘trap’ came from Kirpichenko’s supporters and was not confirmed.
The defense has its version
The defense of today’s accused claims that he lives abroad, rarely came to Israel, and did not have access to classified information. Lebedinskaya-Katz stated that the defendant ‘did not and physically could not cause’ harm to the state. She also claims that foreign contacts did not instruct him to collect or transmit information about Israel.
Previously, Kirpichenko’s supporters reported on lengthy interrogations and pressure. A family representative conveyed his words that the confession was obtained ‘under investigative pressure.’ There is no independent confirmation of these claims. For the court, the case materials, which are almost completely closed, will matter.
Why the name of the intelligence changes the picture
There is a telling comparison. On August 6, NANews analyzed another case of Ashkelon residents accused of working for Iran: there, the prosecution publicly named Iran and described the alleged assignments. In the current case, even the affiliation of foreign intelligence remains prohibited from publication.
In July, NANews analyzed the State Comptroller’s report on foreign influence from Russia and Iran. It recorded problems of coordination of state structures and the absence of a unified national policy against foreign influence. Therefore, the very wording of the new accusation deserves attention separately from the identity of the accused.
A representative of Kirpichenko’s family told a foreign publication that, according to their ‘unofficial information,’ the alleged contact is supposedly not related to Iran or Lebanon. Then he speculated about Russia. These are the words of the family, not the investigation. The state did not name Russia in the published part of the accusation.
Secrecy works unusually here for another reason. The court revealed the legal core of the case only after a press request, while the public discussion of the August detention had been going on for weeks. There was a gap between the biographical story known to the public and what the state officially allows to be associated with the new process.
It turns out to be a rare construction of secrecy: the general meaning of the accusation is already allowed, but four key elements – the name, intelligence, connection, and assignments – remain closed. For