On the afternoon of Monday, 24 Nissan a severe indictment accusing him of espionage was issued to Elad Sela, the soldier from Bat Ayin serving in an intelligence position in the Etzion Brigade suspected of leaking classified military information to residents of the area.
Honenu attorney Adi Kedar, Sela’s defense attorney, severely criticized several clauses of the indictment and the accusation that Sela damaged the security of the State by transferring information to Jewish activists in Yehuda and Shomron.
“We have not yet received and studied the investigatory material, part of which is classified. However in general I think that the indictment is highly problematic. I think that this is the first time that the Israeli system has officially categorized hilltop youth as an enemy,” said Kedar and points to the accusation that Sela has harmed the security of the State by transferring information to activists and his neighbors in Bat Ayin. The information included identifying specific Bat Ayin residents as being interested in carrying out acts against Arabs.
“I think that someone very specific in the uppermost echelons made a very problematic and controversial decision. I hope very much that examining the evidence will help me to refute this claim and that someone, either in the court or the Attorney General’s office, will see fit to get off of his high horse and put the case into its proper proportions.”
Kedar agrees that what the soldier did was in violation of military law, however Kedar states that the Attorney General’s office’s interpretation of the soldier’s acts exaggerates the violation. “He happened to see information that related to his friends and neighbors, and he thought it proper to share it with them. It was a deviation from his authority, however he most certainly did not have the intent to damage the security of the State. I think that this is a matter of speculation and interpretation, and the defendant himself when he read the interpretative portion of the indictment was shocked by what was written and I am absolutely certain that at some stage, after a correct analysis, the case will be returned to its correct dimensions.”
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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One Response
While most readers of YWN feel otherwise, most secular Israelis (based on how they vote) see the “fanatic” pro-settlement groups as traitors to the Medinah and to zionism – so it is reasonable that they would indict a soldier for helping them. Remember the whole idea of establishing the medinah was to set up a homeland for Jews wishing to free of yiddishkeit – and certainly those opposed to that dream are traitors (note that hareidim for the most part prefer to be left alone, and are less of a threat, and that the nationalist Arabs may oppose a Jewish homeland they at least don’t object to it being free of Torah).