Reservist charged in Prime Minister’s Office leak scandal asks Herzog for a pardon

An IDF reservist charged as part of the security documents scandal that has roiled the Prime Minister’s Office in recent weeks asks President Isaac Herzog for a pardon for his acts.

The noncommissioned officer, who has not been identified, was charged together with  Eli Feldstein, an aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The officer was charged with transferring classified information, an offense that is punishable with seven years in prison, as well as theft by an authorized person and obstruction of justice.

His lawyers write to Herzog asking for a pardon, saying he “understood that his acts were forbidden and would not repeat them.”

“If the criminal proceedings taken against him, within the framework of an indictment full of errors, distortions and distortions, a procedure that should never have happened, are not enough, he was ordered detained until the end of the proceedings by the Supreme Court’s decision, which, with all due respect, is a  fundamental mistake,” the letter says.

The allegations surround the alleged leak of a highly classified document to the German tabloid Bild in September, which ostensibly detailed Hamas’s priorities and tactics in hostage negotiations.

The document was allegedly unlawfully removed from the IDF’s military intelligence database by the NCO, who gave it to Feldstein, who then saw to it that it was transferred to Bild.