General accused of rape ‘unlikely to return to army’

IDF general Ofek Buchris may soon hang up his uniform, army officials said Wednesday, after a lie detector test — undertaken over allegations of rape — suggested he lied about physical intimacy with female soldiers who served under his command.

Senior army officials say that even if Buchris is not indicted, failing a polygraph test is enough to prevent him from continuing his military career, Channel 2 news reported Wednesday evening.

The brigadier general is being investigated for alleged instances of rape, sodomy and sexual assault.

Attorneys for the two complainants said this week that the general had failed a lie-detector test administered by army investigators. The claim was dismissed by Buchris’s attorney as a “distorted and tendentious” rendering of the polygraph findings.

Buchris, 47, a highly decorated officer who had been considered to be on the fast track to head the IDF, has vehemently denied the accusations by two female former subordinates.

Last Thursday IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot rescinded Buchris’s nomination to command the army’s Operations Division. Failing a polygraph could spell the end of his service for good.

According to the Channel 2 report, senior officers have been discharged over failed polygraph tests for less serious allegations.

The decision to cancel Buchris’s appointment as the head of the Operations Division, a major position within the IDF, was made due to the realization that the investigation into the case would take “not days, but months,” an IDF spokesperson said this week.

Buchris has already been questioned a number of times by IDF Military Police, and the investigation will continue, the spokesperson said.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.