Military counselor Orna David
Photo: Yaron Brener
Judge Winograd
Photo: Gil Yohanan
IDF lawyer: Notify those who will appear in Winograd report
Military counselor requests Winograd committee notify those who may be named in report, threatens to appeal to High Court
Orna David, the chief military defense counselor, has requested Tuesday that the Winograd committee reveal which soldiers and officers it may name in its report within five days.
Should the committee fail to do so, the defense counselor has threatened to appeal to the High Court.
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The request was made in wake of a Ynet article stating that the Winograd commission would not single out specific government and military officials for punishment in its inquiry into the Second Lebanon War.
In her letter of request, David reminded the members of the committee that a previous appeal to the High Court was canceled with her agreement after the investigative body declared that it was obligated to notify those whose name may be tarnished by the final report.
'We'll be forced to turn to the court'
The committee also agreed to give those who are named the right to peruse the material that is being reviewed for the report and the ability to respond in front of the committee to any charges made against them.
"Forty days have passed from the court ruling (that established the committee) to today, enough time for the committee, with all due respect, to make, in its words 'primary identification of who may be implicated in the final report'.
"This being so, we request that you notify us when you intend to complete this 'primary identification' and give proper notification those soldiers and officers whose legal representative is the military counselor," David wrote.
The military's top lawyer mentioned the Ynet report that revealed the Winograd commission's intention not to send notification letters to those to be implicated in its final report in her letter.
"If you do notify us in a clear and unequivocal manner in five days from now that you intend to fulfill the pledges you made to the High Court, we will be forced to once again turn to the court in order to hold you to your commitments," she wrote.
In the previous appeal to the High Court, David sought to force the commission to either refrain from implicating specific military officials or send warning letters to those implicated.
In that appeal, the military counselor requested the High Court issue an order demanding the committee elaborate "why it will not notify soldiers and officers that they may be implicated and what they will be implicated for".
In a letter of clarification published before the previous appeal, the committee said, that barring the discovery of new information, all those that testified in front of it can consider themselves to have been warned.
