High Court hearing on Sde Teiman leak probe halted as accused facility guard calls court president ‘trash, kapo’

The High Court abruptly halts a hearing on determining who is to oversee investigation into the Sde Teiman leak affair, asking court security guards to eject audience members from the courtroom amid incessant shouting.

As the court adjourns, one of the attendees, a reservist soldier charged with severely abusing a Gazan detainee in the military facility, shouts at the judges: “You trash, you kapo.”

Sitting alongside another accused reservist and his lawyer, the man charges judges with bias in favor of former military advocate general Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, who leaked the footage of the alleged assault.

The High Court is deliberating on petitions against Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s appointment of retired district court judge Yosef Ben-Hamo to oversee the case into Tomer-Yerushalmi’s leaking of the footage.

The court previously ruled that Levin is permitted to name a “senior public official” to head the investigation, replacing Attorney General Gali-Baharav Miara. However, his current candidate Ben-Hamo is considered legally questionable, since he is not “senior.”

Likud firebrand MK Tally Gotliv also arrives in the courtroom and interrupts the proceedings several times. Tweeting during the hearing, she lambasts Justice Yael Willner for casting doubt on the seniority of Ben-Hamo.

“Good to know that a retired district judge is not considered senior in her eyes,” she writes, adding that the High Court judges are “doing everything, absolutely everything, to prevent oversight of the investigation.”