After feud, police chief says won’t remove legal adviser before meeting with AG

Police Chief Daniel Levy has announced he will not remove the police’s legal adviser before holding a meeting with Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, after a public feud on the matter.

In a statement, his office says: “As head of the organization tasked with maintaining and enforcing the law in Israel and out of a sense of responsibility, the commissioner has decided not to discuss the appointment…until his meeting with the attorney general that will take place soon.”

Levy announced last week he was removing Assistant Commissioner Elazar Kahana, the force’s top legal adviser, from his post and instead putting him in charge of the prosecution department, despite not being a candidate for the position. Baharav-Miara then said she was blocking the move, saying it was carried out “in a rushed process and against the officer’s will” and that Kahana was removed as legal adviser “without any reason at all to justify this.” But Levy said he would ignore her order since, he claimed, she did not have the authority to intervene.

Yesterday Baharav-Miara instructed Levy to freeze the process, telling him his actions were illegal and that he was legally bound to abide by her instructions.

“The severity of this incident in which the Israel Police — which is responsible for obedience to the law — ignores legal instructions through a claim of independence, cannot be understated,” the attorney general declared in a letter to Levy.