IDF ousts reservist general for losing top-secret military files in parking lot
Military acknowledges ‘severe operational security violation,’ but thanks Brig. Gen. (res.) Erez Winner for his years of service
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
A senior reserves officer who took classified documents from the Israel Defense Forces’ Southern Command and lost them in a parking lot in Ramat Gan has been dismissed from reserve duty, the military said Tuesday.
Brig. Gen. (res.) Erez Winner, who commanded the operational planning team in the Southern Command, a wartime role, was dismissed by the new chief of the Southern Command, Maj. Gen. Yaniv Asor.
The IDF described the incident in which Winner took the classified documents from the Southern Command base without authorization and dropped them while getting out of his car as a “severe operational security violation.”
According to a Ynet report Sunday, the documents were found by a passerby who handed them to the building security officer, who in turn informed the police and the IDF.
A military source told the site that further compounding the seriousness of the incident, the documents should not have been removed from the base to begin with.
The decision by Asor to dismiss Winner from reserve duty was supported by new IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the military said Tuesday.
Still, Asor thanked Winner “for his many years of service and volunteerism, and in particular for his significant contribution during the last 17 months of fighting… in which he worked day and night for the security of the State of Israel.”
Winner’s name was recently tied up in another scandal, when it was reported a week ago by the Kan public broadcaster that he was regularly leaking information to Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also serves as a minister in the Defense Ministry.
According to the report, Winner was providing Smotrich with printed presentations from the army, and current information not revealed to the rest of the cabinet, via an unauthorized back channel.
Smotrich did not deny the accusation.
Winner, a former aide de camp to ex-IDF chief Gabi Ashkenazi, was also accused over a decade ago of illegally collecting and secretly distributing materials aimed at defaming IDF officials, as well as senior politicians, as part of an internal succession battle.
He was arrested and questioned in the incident, his scheduled promotion was canceled, and he was forced out of the army in 2013, but ultimately was never charged.
Winner remained a reservist in the IDF, and in 2018 he was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general.
During the 2014 Gaza war, Winner was also accused of feeding information to Naftali Bennett, then a political partner of Smotrich, about IDF deployments and findings via an unapproved back channel.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
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