JERUSALEM (VINnews) — The Jerusalem District Court sentenced Bet Shemesh resident Elimelech Stern on Thursday morning to three years in prison. He was convicted last September of contact with a foreign agent and conspiracy to make threats, after carrying out assignments for Iranian operatives. He was also fined and given a suspended sentence.

Judge Hanna Lomp said in her ruling: “The activity he carried out was not at the highest level. This is a normative individual who fell into personal and financial distress. I took into account his personal circumstances and the fact that he was a very positive member of his community. On the other hand, these offenses were committed during wartime and are part of a very widespread phenomenon. Therefore I set the sentence as detailed. The bottom line is that the heart aches that such a yeshiva student fell from a great height to a deep pit.”

The judge added: “The prosecution also submitted an opinion outlining the scope and danger of the phenomenon. There are dozens of people and dozens of indictments in similar activity connected to Iran. The difference is that he did not know it was Iran and that he turned a blind eye to the fact that this was a foreign agent and foreign entity, and therefore his level of culpability is lower than that of other defendants.”

Despite the growing number of exposed cases, Stern is the first person involved in Iranian espionage affairs to be sentenced outside of a plea bargain.

Stern was 21 years old at the time of his arrest. According to the verdict, he was in contact via Telegram with a woman whose true identity is unknown and who went by the name “Anna” or “ANNA ELENA.” As part of this relationship, Stern carried out various assignments she gave him in Israel in exchange for payment in cryptocurrency. From early on he suspected she was a foreign agent, and this suspicion grew stronger as the assignments became more severe and clearly security-related.

Among the tasks he carried out: printing and posting notices in Tel Aviv with security-nationalist messages, including a poster showing a bloodstained hand with the English text, “It will be written in history that children were killed, let’s stand on the right side of history”; hiding money at various locations in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv; collecting a mobile phone as instructed by the agent; and delivering packages that included an animal’s severed head or a decapitated doll, a knife, and a threatening message, intended to be left at the doorsteps of Israeli civilians. Stern refused to carry out a murder and a mission to set a forest on fire, but cooperated with the other instructions.

To carry out the assignments, Stern recruited two additional Israeli citizens, who were paid for their participation. One of them was recruited to hang the posters, filmed himself doing so, and sent the photos to Stern, who forwarded them to “ANNA ELENA.”

The prosecution noted that since Stern’s indictment, more than thirty additional indictments have been filed for similar offenses, and that this reflects a broad and expanding phenomenon of Iranian recruitment inside Israel that crosses sectors and does not distinguish between different populations. According to the prosecution, the growing number of cases and their becoming commonplace show that there is insufficient deterrence, and that exposing the cases and prosecuting those involved is not enough, as harsher punishment is needed for deterrence.

The prosecution also noted that the defendant chose to conduct a full trial and did not take responsibility for his actions, and therefore requested a sentence of seven years in prison along with additional penalties.

The court, as stated, sentenced the defendant to three years in prison along with additional penalties. The court ruled that: “When dealing with the offense of which the defendant was convicted, special importance must be given to considerations of general deterrence, in light of the importance of protecting state security, the enormous potential harm inherent in these offenses, and in order to prevent their being carried out.”