Israel general faces rape charge

An Israeli military brigadier general reportedly faces charges of rape, sodomy, and indecent acts as a special military court manages to corroborate the suspicion that he committed the abuse against a female subordinate in 2012.

Brigadier General Ofek Buchris had been suspected of perpetrating the violations over a long period of time against the officer, The Times of Israel reported on Tuesday.

“There has been enough evidence collected so far to establish suspicions against the officer,” said Brigadier General Maya Heller, the judge presiding over the case at the court at the Kirya base in Tel Aviv.

The judge also said that publically identifying Buchris, who has been suspended over the accusations, helped motivate other likely victims to take action.

Buchris, a 47-year-old married father of six and his attorney, though, strongly argue against the accusations, with the latter saying he has successfully passed several lie detector tests.

The investigation is now expected to be followed up at a higher level.

The issue of sexual misconduct in the Israeli army has given rise to heated debates over the past years.

The Israeli army itself says it has launched around 250 investigations into sexual abuse allegations over the past two years. Twelve of the investigations concern alleged rape, up from eight in 2014 and five in 2013.

Last year, the Israeli military Bamahane weekly quoted an Israeli military prosecutor as saying that sex crime allegations in the military had doubled since 2012.

In 2014, it was revealed that the senior officials of the Israeli military had covered up a sexual scandal in which six soldiers were harassed in the Givati Brigade, an infantry brigade of the Israeli military. The reports also said that the criminal case was not reported to the regime’s judiciary and that the offender had just been transferred to another unit.