Levin accuses High Court of meddling as it weighs his pick to lead Sde Teiman probe

Justice Minister Yariv Levin on Wednesday accused Israel’s top court of interfering in the investigation into the leak of surveillance footage from the Sde Teiman military facility, after the court decided to delay the appointment of Levin’s pick to lead the probe as it weighs his eligibility.

Former military advocate general Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi has admitted to authorizing the leak of CCTV footage last year purporting to show the severe abuse of a Palestinian security detainee by IDF soldiers at the Sde Teiman facility. She is accused of then lying about the matter while ostensibly leading the investigation to find the leaker.

Last week, Levin announced the appointment of retired district court judge Yosef Ben-Hamo to head the probe, following a High Court of Justice ruling that allowed him to choose an overseer, provided the appointee was a senior public servant, which Ben-Hamo is not.

A subsequent court ruling temporarily stayed Ben-Hamo’s appointment.

In response, Levin submitted a filing in which a member of the Civil Service Commission is cited as saying that Ben-Hamo does meet the court’s criteria, which requires the person overseeing the probe to have no political affiliation, be an expert in legal affairs, and have a job closely connected to criminal investigations or prosecutions.

Critics have charged that, in addition to not being a senior public servant, Ben-Hamo is ineligible as he has ties to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party and lacks the requisite criminal law expertise.

On Wednesday, Levin and the Attorney General’s Office submitted conflicting opinions to the court regarding Ben-Hamo’s viability, with the latter arguing that he does not fit the set criteria of eligibility for the role and asking that his appointment be overruled.

The Attorney General’s Office told the court that there were “fundamental flaws” in the process through which Levin appointed Ben-Hamo to lead the investigation, arguing that Ben-Hamo “does not meet the conditions of the High Court’s ruling and he is not a civil servant.”

Levin, in his response, told the court that the longer it delays Ben-Hamo’s appointment, the stronger the suspicion grows that it is interfering in the investigation.

“Every passing hour increases the fear that the investigation will be disrupted by those involved in the affair,” the justice minister stated, warning of “irreversible evidentiary damage and the endangerment of the ability to investigate the truth.”

“History will judge those who acted to investigate the truth and who acted with a conflict of interest, thwarted, disrupted, postponed, and delayed the investigation of the truth,” he added.

Levin initially chose State Ombudsman for Judges Asher Kula to oversee the investigation, but the court invalidated that appointment since the law explicitly bans the ombudsman from serving in any other position or carrying out any other function while in office.

Such an investigation would usually be overseen by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara; however, the court said a conflict of interest, stemming from the attorney general’s involvement in an earlier investigation into the leak, blocked her from overseeing the investigation.

Levin, who led the controversial bid to weaken Israel’s judiciary in 2023, which sparked mass protests, has again taken aim at the High Court, which he has repeatedly accused of standing in the way of government policy and acting as a wing of the opposition from within the halls of power.

He has also championed the ongoing effort to oust Baharav-Miara from her position, which is the subject of a separate court battle, and has pushed legislation to break up the attorney general’s role into three separate jobs and strip it of its power to constrain the government.