Coalition MKs accuse AG of cover-up in Sde Teiman leak, deride ‘deep state’ at Knesset hearing

Likud MK Moshe Saada derides the law enforcement system as a “criminal organization” guarded over by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara at a Knesset hearing on alleged “conflicts of interest” in the probe into the Sde Teiman video leak scandal.

Speaking to the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, Saada, a former deputy head of the Israel Police’s Department of Internal Police Investigations, alleges that the attorney general knew about former military advocate general Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi’s role in leaking footage of soldiers appearing to abuse a Gazan detainee held at the Sde Teiman detention facility.

“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,” he says.

“It’s very much a criminal organization… and who is covering for this criminal organization, who is allowing it? Gali,” he charges, referring to the attorney general.

He calls for everyone involved in the affair to be arrested “from end to end,” and laments that the military advocate general’s deputy, Brig. Gen. Gal Asael, who oversaw an internal investigation into the matter that did not implicate Tomer-Yerushalmi, has not been detained.

Baharav-Miara declined to appear at today’s hearing and sent a letter to committee chairman MK Simcha Rothman saying no law enforcement officials would be able to attend for fear of interfering with investigation into the leak.

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,” says Rothman.

Speaking of Blatt’s absence, Rothman charges that the “investigative actors themselves are contaminating the investigation… This is a tragic thing.”

“If Blatt had appeared, we would be able to say: ‘OK, at least this is being investigated as it should be by the head of investigations and intelligence, who wasn’t involved in the affair,’ but the moment he saw the attorney general’s letter, he decided not to show up,” Rothman says.

He further lambasts opposition lawmakers for not appearing at the hearing, accusing them of believing that “Israeli citizens don’t deserve answers.”