High Court hearing on Sde Teiman leak probe underway; man removed after calling court president ‘criminal’

A disgruntled audience member shouts at top justice Yitzhak Amit, calling him a “criminal” during a High Court hearing on Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s appointment of retired district court judge Yosef Ben-Hamo to head a probe into the Sde Teiman leak scandal.

The man shouts: “Yitzhak Amit, you are a criminal,” and is removed from the courtroom, Hebrew outlets report.

Responding to the outburst, Amit says that he is “glad the public and the cameras can see how they try to intimidate the court.”

The court proceedings are being streamed live online.

Soon after the scandal erupted, Levin accused Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara of having a conflict of interest in the case and attempted to sideline her by appointing his own official to head the investigation, even though she would normally lead such a probe.

Although Baharav-Miara is not a suspect in the affair, the court granted Levin the authority to appoint a “senior public servant” to oversee the case, while a conflict of interest on her part was not entirely ruled out.

Ben-Hamo is Levin’s second choice after the court rejected his initial candidate, State Ombudsman for Judges Asher Kula. The court issued an interim order delaying the appointment of Ben-Hamo, since he is not a senior public official — one of the criteria set by the court.

Justice Yael Willner says that although Ben-Hamo is an “ad hoc civil servant,” he is not “senior.”

“In the ruling, we wrote ‘senior,’ and that word was not written for nothing,” she says in the courtroom, as quoted by Ynet.