A military police intelligence officer tasked with recruiting undercover agents has been indicted in military court for rape, breach of trust, fraud and drug offenses.
The officer is accused of raping a soldier who he recruited as a source to report criminal acts by her unit. According to the defendant, the accused raped her at least two times.
The defendant first met the accused in July 2019, where he first to recruit her and falsely introduced himself using another name and claimed that he was a 26-year-old who was in the Air Force’s prestigious pilot’s course. He also expressed interest in her private life as well as her relationship with her partner.
According to Hebrew media reports, when the defendant refused to serve as an informant, he threatened that “it would lead to bad consequences, you know what I mean” leading her to agree to inform on her fellow soldiers.
After she agreed to serve as an informant, the two would meet weekly at her base and spoke regularly over the phone.
“The indictment indicates that the accused was recruiting the soldier as a source and even operating her, contrary to the professional commands of the IDF,” said a statement provided to The Jerusalem Post by the IDF’s Spokesperson’s Unit.
The indictment, quoted by Channel 12, said that during the encounters the accused complimented her on her appearance and caressed her legs, hands and hair. The accused even asked the defendant to wait until the end of her military service to end so that they could “further develop the intimate connection” between the two of them, something that the defendant made clear to the accused would not happen.
After a few days of not speaking, the accused spoke to the defendant and asked that she meet him at his home. At the end of January 2020 she came to his house at night where the accused offered her an alcoholic beverage.
According to the defendant, the accused raped her at his home while she continued to ask him to stop.
“The IDF views all sexual harm as a grave offense, especially where an IDF officer exploits his authority to commit the harm,” the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said, adding that “the IDF will continue to act to eradicate such phenomena and will make sure that anyone who goes against it is prosecuted in an appropriate manner.”
The trial is ongoing at the Jaffa Military Court.
Less than two weeks ago, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi relieved one officer of duty and formally censured four others for their role in the suicide of a Givati soldier, Cpl. Niv Lubaton, who was being recruited by Military Police as an informant.
Following the investigation into Lubaton’s death, the then-commander of the Military Police Investigatory Unit’s Beersheba station was removed from the unit. The officer, who held the rank of Major, will also not serve in positions of command and he will not be able to be promoted for six years in light of his responsibility for the incident.
The investigation into the January 2018 suicide of Lubaton, took place over the course of several months, after Kochavi ordered a full investigation into his suicide and the methods used by the Military Police Investigatory Unit (Metzach) for recruiting informants.
“This is an unbelievably painful and saddening incident and we must do everything to prevent such an event from recurring,” Kochavi said. “Intelligence gathering, interrogations and the like must be carried out with sensitivity and concern for the soldier. The Military Police Investigatory Unit must learn lessons and implement them immediately.”
The military said that Kochavi also ordered a series of systematic measures for the Military Police Investigatory Unit as well as in the military, including reviewing and updating its methods of recruiting informants.
In December, Israeli Police arrested a 19-year-old from Rishon Lezion on suspicion of committing sex offenses, including the rape of a 12-year-old girl from the North, whom he met online. The accused served as a soldier in the Military Police Criminal Investigations Division.