High Court orders AG to respond to petition calling for her to be sidelined from Sde Teiman leak probe

The High Court of Justice orders Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and Deputy State Attorney Alon Altman to respond to a petition requesting they be barred from participating in the investigation of former military advocate general Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi’s leak of a video from the Sde Teiman detention center.

The two officials must file their responses by noon tomorrow.

The petition, filed by Likud MK Avichai Boaron and the Lavi conservative legal advocacy organization, alleges that documents submitted by the Attorney General’s Office to the High Court over the affair demonstrate that Baharav-Miara played a key role in recommending that an internal probe into the leak end without a criminal investigation.

The submissions to the High Court were made after the officials from the Military Advocate General’s Office conducting the internal probe relayed the results of their review to the Attorney General’s Office. Baharav-Miara has said that she and her office had no information about the source of the leak until developments in the case last week.

“It is unthinkable that the person who needs to be examined and investigated will conduct the investigation into herself,” says Boaron. “She must state that she will not be involved in the issue, and if she does not do so, the court will do it for her.”

Justice Minister Yariv Levin is also seeking to sideline Baharav-Miara from the investigation for the same reasons, and has designated State Ombudsman for Judges Asher Kula to head the investigation into Tomer-Yerushalmi.

Baharav-Miara has, however, rejected Levin’s efforts to bar her from the investigation, and insisted that she and senior officials in the Attorney General’s Office will oversee the probe.

This clash of authorities now looks likely to be adjudicated by the High Court.