Israel sentenced a former member of parliament to 18 months in prison on Thursday, Sept. 4, for traveling to Syria and making contact with a “foreign agent,” the justice ministry said.

Said Naffa travelled in 2007 to Syria, with which Israel is technically still at war, as part of a delegation of 300 Druze religious leaders, the charge sheet said.

Naffa, a member of parliament at the time, met a leader of the PFLP-General Command, an offshoot of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which “is a terror organisation,” according to a ministry statement.

He initially denied the meeting took place and then said it was an arbitrary encounter, but “the court determined it was a secret and planned meeting, which could harm the state’s security,” the ministry said.

The Nazareth district court sentenced Naffa to one year for “contact with a foreign agent” and another six months for organizing and participating in the trip, the statement said, with the sentences to be served concurrently.

Naffa told AFP the trip was aimed at “reestablishing contacts between members of the Druze community in Israel, Syria and Lebanon.”

He said he appealed the verdict to the Supreme Court.