Judge extends ex-IDF legal chief’s remand after suspicions against her strengthen

Former military advocate general Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi will remain in detention at least until Friday, a judge in the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court ruled Wednesday, saying that suspicions against her had strengthened.

Tomer-Yerushalmi appeared on Zoom for her remand hearing after being arrested Sunday night on suspicion of trying to obstruct an investigation into the leak of a video to the media that purports to show IDF soldiers severely abusing a Gazan detainee at the Sde Teiman facility.

During the remand hearing, Judge Shelley Kutin said that police’s recent findings “strengthen the reasonable suspicion regarding all the offenses” attributed to Tomer-Yerushalmi, who last week resigned from her post and admitted to leaking the footage.

Her admission sparked outrage from politicians in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition who insist on the soldiers’ innocence, with the premier himself calling the leak “the most serious public relations attack” against Israel to date.

The disgraced official went missing at the Tel Aviv coast for several hours Sunday, leading police to fear she had taken her own life. When she was found in Herzliya that night, officers were unable to locate her phone and now believe that the incident was an attempt to stage a suicide while disposing of digital evidence related to the leaking and subsequent cover-up.

Police earlier this week reportedly searched Tomer-Yerushalmi’s home, seizing her smartwatch and scanning its contents, after she gave them the password.

Immediately after Tomer-Yerushalmi’s hearing, Kutin ruled that former chief military prosecutor Col. Matan Solomosh, who is suspected of helping interfere with the probe, would go free at 10 p.m. Wednesday under restrictive conditions.

Though he is still a suspect, Kutin said there was no reason to keep Solomosh in jail while other suspects questioned under caution had been released.

There are three other suspects in the case, as well as two others involved who gave open testimony to investigators, police said Monday.

During the hearing, police representative Supt. Arnon Harpaz spoke of a “conspiracy of silence” among Tomer-Yerushalmi’s associates regarding the leak that investigators are struggling to crack.

He accused Solomosh of being present at the time Tomer-Yerushalmi approved a leak of the video to the media, insisting the former chief military prosecutor was part of the so-called “conspiracy of silence.”

Dori Klagsbald, the lawyer for Tomer-Yerushalmi, said the leak investigation was being conducted in “an atmosphere of mass hysteria” and warned of incitement against his client.

“There are people from ZAKA diving on the Tel Aviv beach, people that are scanning the beach voluntarily with metal detectors,” he said, referring to the rescue organization that specializes in dealing with bodies of terror victims.

“When Yifat was found, one person in the media tweeted: ‘The lynching can continue,’” Klagsbald added, referring to Yinon Magal of the right-wing Channel 14, who tweeted these words Sunday evening after her arrest.

Coalition lawmakers decry ‘deep state’

Prior to the remand hearing, lawmakers convened in the Knesset for a meeting to discuss alleged conflicts of interest in the probe into the Sde Teiman video leak scandal, accusing Attorney General Baharav-Miara of taking part in the cover-up.

The efforts by the coalition to implicate Baharav-Miara come amid long-running attempts to oust her from her position amid frustration over her refusal to rubberstamp government policies.

The meeting, held jointly by the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee and the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, was attended solely by coalition lawmakers and right-wing guests, who decried Baharav-Miara’s absence from the discussion and attacked the law enforcement system.

The attorney general declined to attend in the meeting and sent a letter to committee chairman MK Simcha Rothman (Religious Zionism), telling him that no law enforcement officials would be able to attend for fear of obstructing the investigation.

The letter also stated that “the law enforcement agencies did not have any information on the source of the leak” before Tomer-Yerushalmi’s admission last week.

Nevertheless, Likud MK Moshe Saada accused Baharav-Miara of having known of Tomer-Yerushalmi’s role.

“Everyone together leaks a recording that leads to a blood libel against the State of Israel and the Jewish world, creates antisemitism and hurts heroic soldiers,” said Saada, a former deputy head of the Israel Police’s Department of Internal Police Investigations.

He noted that before police began investigating the leak, an internal probe into the matter was overseen by Baharav-Miara and undertaken by the military advocate general’s deputy, Brig. Gen. Gal Asael.

The probe proved unsuccessful and did not implicate Tomer-Yerushalmi, which Saada and other coalition lawmakers cited as proof of a cover-up by the law enforcement system.

Police said later during the remand hearing that although they took testimony from Asael, they were not investigating him as a suspect, casting doubt on claims of his guilt.

The committee also invited the police’s head of investigations and intelligence, Deputy Commissioner Boaz Blatt, who also declined to show up, in line with Baharav-Miara’s letter.

“I don’t know whether I’m happy or sad that the deep state and its representatives in the Knesset decided not to show up,” said Rothman. Speaking of Blatt’s absence, he said that the “investigative actors themselves are contaminating the investigation… This is a tragic thing.”

At the meeting, the wife of one of the soldiers charged with severely abusing the Palestinian detainee in Sde Teiman urged “justice and transparency for the fighters” suspected in the affair.

“We will expose everyone,” said the wife, who could be identified only by her first name Hila, to lawmakers. “Just because she [Baharav-Miara] didn’t show up doesn’t mean we won’t do everything to ensure that she is investigated.”

Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har-Melech alleged that the “attorney general is no less guilty than the military advocate general” in the affair.

“Even if she was not directly involved [in covering up the leak’s source], it is clear she worked alongside the military advocate general, inasmuch that she took testimony from her and that she was going to be used as a witness for the prosecution,” Son Har-Melech claimed.

There is no hard proof that Baharav-Miara knew about the leak’s source. Tomer-Yerushalmi told police during her interrogation that she did not inform high-ranking officials in the prosecution of her decision to leak the video, the Kan public broadcaster reported Tuesday.

Pushback against Levin’s sidelining of AG

The rumors swirling around Baharav-Miara prompted Justice Minister Yariv Levin to try bar her and her office from overseeing the probe, after she filed submissions to the High Court in September that turned out to be inaccurate.

He appointed the State Ombudsman for Judges, Asher Kula, in her stead.

The Movement for Quality Government in Israel filed a request to the High Court of Justice asking that it issue an interim order against Levin instructing him to cease his efforts to sideline the attorney general.

The request also urged the court to issue a final decision regarding its petition to annul the government’s decision to fire Baharav-Miara back in August.

The advocacy group said Levin’s interpretation of a law he cited to justify his actions had “not even the faintest foundation.”

A separate petition filed by Likud MK Avichai Boaron requested that the High Court do the opposite, and order the attorney general to remove herself from the case, for the same reasons as Levin has alleged. The court this morning asked the attorney general to respond.