The Buchris Case

Brig. Gen. (ret) Ofek Buchris 

The Jerusalem Post has an informative article about today's initial proceedings in the court-martial of retired IDF Brig. Gen. Ofek Buchris. The composition of the court is itself interesting:

Col. Judge Col. [sic] Orli Markman presided over the hearing at the special military court at the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv and set the arraignment date for September 29.

For the purposes of the trial, Markman will be promoted to the rank of brigadier-general, as will one other judge on the panel, retired Tel Aviv District Court judge and reserve military judge Zvi Garfinkle, so that they will not hold a lower rank than the defendant.

The third judge on the panel is Brig.-Gen. Yohai Ben-Yosef, who is not a judge, but an operational navy officer and former commander of the Haifa Naval Base – who was selected in part to give an operational perspective to the judges and partially because he is one of the few commanders who has no history with Buchris.

General Buchris resigned rather than face the possibility of a sentence that included a demotion, as noted here.