Citing conflict of interest concerns, Justice Ministry won’t hand Sde Teiman leak probe to AG

The Justice Ministry on Sunday announced its intention to pass police’s investigation into the Sde Teiman abuse leak scandal to State Attorney Amit Aisman rather than his boss, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, claiming there is still concern she has a conflict of interest in the case.

The move came a month after the High Court of Justice demanded that the ministry’s legal adviser, Yael Kotik, choose a legal official to handle the case, following the police’s completion of a probe into the leak to the media of footage purporting to show reservists severely abusing a Gazan detainee at the Sde Teiman detention facility.

The affair is one aspect of a broader power struggle between Baharav-Miara and Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who accuses the attorney general of having a conflict of interest in the case after her office oversaw an internal probe that recommended not opening a criminal investigation into the leak’s source.

That source ended up being revealed as ex-military advocate general Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, who admitted to the leak.

Last fall, Levin demanded that he be allowed to select someone from outside the state prosecution to oversee the investigation. The probe was ongoing at the time, with Baharav-Miara’s role still an open question, and the court granted his request.

While judges allowed Levin to pick a supervisor, they rejected both of his nominees, since neither met the guidelines set out in their ruling.

After completing the investigation, police passed a summary of their findings to the Justice Ministry and requested that Baharav-Miara be allowed to supervise the case, saying they had ruled her out as a suspect in the affair.

Levin has nevertheless continued to insist on excluding the attorney general, and the case file sat idle in the Justice Ministry for a month.

Kotik wrote in her opinion submitted to the High Court that Aisman’s involvement in the initial, fallacious probe was limited. “As such… he is the most senior official in the system to whom the investigative materials can be transferred for review,” she said.

“Regarding the attorney general, it was determined that members of her office oversaw the investigative team in the Military Advocate General’s office, whose role was to examine the source of the information leak,” she continued, arguing that the link raised concern about a conflict of interest.

The Movement for Quality Government in Israel — the civil society group that filed the petition urging the High Court to force Kotik’s hand — rejected her plan to pass the case to Aisman, accusing her of acting to serve the political interests of Levin and the right-wing ruling coalition.

“Kotik is not authorized to review investigation material, is not a prosecutor under the law, and is herself in a serious conflict of interest due to her personal ties with the justice minister,” the group said in a statement.

The group further claimed that the manner in which Kotik reached her decision, “after repeatedly demanding access to investigation material without authority [to do so], only strengthens the concern that she is acting to serve political interests rather than the public interest.”

Baharav-Miara has come into a series of confrontations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition, which is seeking to oust her from her post. It has announced her firing under a newly introduced legal method, but the High Court has annulled the process and demanded that the established mechanism be used.

The government has accused the attorney general of serially thwarting its will over policy, appointments and legislation, and asserts that it can no longer work effectively with her, while Baharav-Miara has argued she has simply been demarcating what the government can and cannot do under the law.