Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara’s office contacted the office of then–Defense Minister Yoav Gallant twice in an attempt to persuade him not to demand an investigation into the leak of the Sde Teiman video, i24NEWS reported on Wednesday evening.

According to the report, the leak of the video “infuriated” Gallant, who demanded that the IDF Chief of Staff open an investigation to find the source of the leak. The Attorney General’s office then tried to thwart the investigation.

Baharav-Miara raised various arguments in an attempt to persuade Gallant to withdraw his demand, including that this was not a case that justified a criminal investigation into a leak to the media, that Gallant would not want investigations to begin into leaks by cabinet politicians, and that it was a waste of time to divert attention to this matter.

i24 emphasized that it has no evidence that Baharav-Miara was aware that the leak was carried out by Military Advocate General Tomer Yerushalmi.

At a certain stage, Gallant grew unhappy with the pace of the internal investigation and instructed the IDF Chief of Staff to initiate a parallel command-level inquiry. In response, Baharav-Miara and Deputy Military Advocate General Gal Asael informed him that such an inquiry was not feasible, warning that it could interfere with and compromise the ongoing criminal investigation being conducted by Asael under the Attorney General’s close supervision.

Last week, i24 reported that Asael rejected the allegations against him regarding the investigation during his police interrogation and shifted responsibility to the Attorney General’s office.

“There is no action I took that did not receive praise from the Attorney General’s office,” Ashael said.

He added that the Attorney General’s office “gave me feedback that was later also submitted to the Supreme Court, that the investigation was very serious and thorough. So what do you want from me? Until now, I never conducted a leaks investigation—this is the first one I was appointed to lead.”

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)