Illustration
צילום: דובר צה"ל
Draft dodger sentenced to 58 days of military work
Police stop Ramat Gan resident for driver license check, discover he evaded IDF service for 12 years. Lawyers manage to reach plea bargain with prosecution, man to perform military work at army base for two months
A Ramat Gan resident who evaded military service for 12 years was sentenced Thursday by the Military Court in Jaffa to three hours of military work at the Tel Hashomer base for two months.
About two weeks ago, the police stopped the 36-year-old man for a driver license check and discovered that he did not perform military service and was defined a draft dodger.
The information appeared on the police records due to a new cooperation system between the IDF and the police.
The man was arrested, handed over to the Military Police and sent to a military prison. Shortly afterwards, he was indicted for evading military service for 4,034 days.
The man was originally supposed to perform only one year of IDF service, after serving for about two years in the Soviet Union army, but as it turned out, he never put on his uniform.
A plea bargain reached between the Military Prosecution and the man's lawyers, Almogit Avital and Idan Pesach, was approved by Judge Maya Heller, who ruled that the dodger will perform 58 hours of military work.
The man will start serving his sentence within a few days, and will be forced to show up at the Tel Hashomer base every weekday for three hours of work.
Attorney Idan Pesach said at the end of the court hearing, "It is hard to understand how the military system slams the draft dodging phenomenon and tries to fight it, while in practice we encounter many incidents of failures by the recruiting offices."
