Cops set to question ex-IDF legal chief after discharge from month-long hospitalization
Police to summon Tomer-Yerushalmi in coming days; former military prosecutor’s house arrest over Sde Teiman leak ended during hospital stay
Former military advocate general Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi was discharged Friday morning from Tel Aviv’s Sourasky Medical Center, after spending nearly a month in the hospital.
Police said that she will be summoned for interrogation in the coming days for her role in the Sde Teiman video leak scandal, as the battle over who will oversee the investigation drags on in the High Court.
The ex-IDF legal chief was hospitalized on November 9 after medics were called to her home to find that she had overdosed on sleeping pills, in what was later confirmed to have been a suicide attempt.
Tomer-Yerushalmi is the central suspect in the ongoing investigation into the leak of the video which purported to show IDF troops severely abusing a Gazan detainee at the Sde Teiman detention facility, and its subsequent cover-up. Her house arrest ended in mid-November while she was still in the hospital, as police declined to request an extension on her limitations.
A police source told Ynet at the time that restrictive conditions were irrelevant so long as she was in the hospital, and that investigators would “evaluate the need to continue the conditions” after she was discharged.
After law enforcement launched the probe in October, Tomer-Yerushalmi resigned from her post and admitted to approving the leak of the footage.
Officers arrested Tomer-Yerushalmi in early November after she went missing off the coast of Tel Aviv, prompting fears for her life.
Officers suspected she attempted to dispose of evidence after they found the disgraced prosecutor without her phone, at the end of an hours-long search. Her phone was found a few days later.
Her remand was extended several times by the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court, but days after she was released to house arrest, Tomer-Yerushalmi overdosed.
Medics took her to the hospital while she was conscious and in stable condition, where she remained until her Friday release.
Police Commissioner Danny Levy confirmed that Tomer-Yerushalmi tried to end her own life. “Her life isn’t rosy,” he said last month, after a protester was detained outside of her home.
Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.