'Sexual harassment' omitted from convicted officer's plea deal

Former IDF soldier May Fatal petitioned the Military Court at the Camp Rabin base in Tel Aviv on Thursday to include a sexual harassment charge in the plea bargain settled with her former commander Lt. Col. Liran Hajbi.

The court did not agree to Fatal's request, but instead added a notation to the existing five charges of inappropriate behavior to indicate that they included "inappropriate acts toward a subordinate, some of a sexual nature."

The military investigation into Hajbi's behavior began in November 2014, following suspicions of his involvement in indecent acts and sexual harassment against two female soldiers.

He took aplea bargain in Marchwherein he accepted charges of conduct unbecoming an officer, but did not receive a criminal record. Fatal called the indictment "humiliating."

IDF chief prosecutor, Col. Udi Ben-Eliezer, said that Hajbi admitted to everything written in the plea bargain, adding: "The guilty party will be discharged from the army in June. The punishment requested by the prosecution would include lowering the guilty party's rank, a suspended prison sentence and compensation for the first complainant [May Fatal] in the amount of 5,000 shekels [$1,293]."

"Thirty-six incidents of harassment"

Ben-Eliezer also read aloud an emotional statement written by Fatal, in which she explained: "I am prepared to accept a plea bargain. ... I have no problem with him [Hajbi] being convicted of the charges in the plea bargain indictment, but I am absolutely not prepared to accept that it will not say that he sexually harassed me 36 times."

Head of the panel of judges, Lt. Col. Orly Markman, refused the request made by Fatal's attorney Roni Aloni-Sedovnik to hold the session behind closed doors, citing no concern of infringing upon the complainant's privacy.

IDF chief defense counsel, Col. Asher Halperin, who is representing Hajbi in the case, rejected Fatal's claims, saying, "You can say 'sexual harassment' a thousand times and it still will not be true. The indictment does not include charges of sexual harassment or other sex crimes. ... The phrase 'harassed 36 times' is hiding something, and next time we will be sure to get an answer as to what that is."

Fatal further wrote in her letter: "Would the IDF return to business as usual if an officer shot his soldier and caused him to be disabled for the rest of his life? So why should it behave as a chauvinistic apologist when it comes to an officer who caused his soldier to become emotionally disabled from the constant stress and harassment that she had to deal with for such a long time-"

Halperin responded to the letter, saying, "This is the second time that the complainant has carried out the same cynical exercise -- agreeing to a plea bargain in the morning, and then rejecting it before the day is out.

"It was only after she left the court that the complainant released a letter -- which was not presented to the judges -- that included different facts from those presented in the case. We regret this type of conduct. We will continue to deal with this case in the courthouse."