Reservist charged in Prime Minister’s Office leak scandal asks Herzog for a pardon
Attorneys for noncommissioned officer say he realizes what he did was prohibited, will not be repeated; president says he’s reviewing request, which is also backed by 50 MKs

An IDF reservist charged in the security documents scandal that has roiled the Prime Minister’s Office in recent weeks asked President Isaac Herzog for a pardon for his acts on Thursday.
The noncommissioned officer, whose name is barred from publication under a gag order, was charged together with Eli Feldstein, an aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The NCO was charged with transferring classified information, an offense that is punishable by up to seven years in prison, as well as theft by an authorized person and obstruction of justice.
His lawyers wrote to Herzog asking for a pardon, saying he “understood that his acts were forbidden and would not repeat them.”
Admitting guilt and expressing remorse are conditions needed for a presidential pardon.
The attorneys wrote that the case of their client raises “special circumstances, personal, legal and public, that require intervention by the honorable president with an immediate pardon, even before the end of his legal proceedings.”
They noted also that Feldstein has been released to house arrest while their client is still being held in custody.
The attorneys further claimed that the indictment against their client was “full of errors and distortions.”
Herzog’s office said that it had received the pardon request and had begun looking into the matter.
The statement said that “the president has full confidence in the legal system and the request will be examined and reviewed, like all requests submitted to the President’s Residence.”

Throwing their support behind both the officer and Feldstein were 50 coalition MKs who signed onto a letter to Herzog urging him to accept the pardon request, Ynet reported.
Among the signatories were Culture Minister Miki Zohar and Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf.
Zohar called the officer “a true Israeli patriot who acted out of a sense of mission and concern for Israel’s security,” in a statement announcing his support.
In his own letter to Herzog, Goldknopf wrote that the “mental and physical condition [of the officer] is deteriorating day by day.”
Shas party chairman Aryeh Deri also gave his backing for the pardon and spoke with Herzog, the Kan public broadcaster reported.
Deri reportedly told Herzog that the soldier “made a mistake and admits to it. He is not a danger to the public in any way, and there should be an end to his suffering and his continued arrest.”
The affair centers around what prosecutors allege were Feldstein’s efforts to sway public opinion surrounding the negotiations for the release of the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza in a more favorable direction for Netanyahu, days after six of the hostages were murdered by the terror group in late August.

Feldstein leaked a highly classified document to the German tabloid Bild in early September, which ostensibly detailed Hamas’s priorities and tactics in hostage negotiations. (It later became apparent the document was written by lower-level officials in the terror group and did not necessarily reflect the leadership’s position.)
In releasing Feldstein to house arrest last week, Tel Aviv District Court Justice Alex Stein ruled that the state had already sustained the blow to its security from the information Feldstein allegedly leaked and that he didn’t have any more classified information to reveal.
However, Stein rejected an appeal for release by the reservist noncommissioned officer, writing that since the NCO was exposed to a great deal of classified information during his work for the IDF’s Military Intelligence data security department and since he had leaked such documents in the past, he might do so again, further endangering state security.
On October 7, 2023, Palestinian terror group Hamas led a devastating cross-border attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians. The estimated 3,000 terrorists who invaded the country also abducted 251 people who were taken as hostages to the Gaza Strip.
Internationally mediated talks to reach a deal for the release of the hostages, of whom 96 remain in captivity, along with a ceasefire have so far failed to yield an agreement.