State Comptroller issues summons to two ex-Shin Bet officials over October 7 probe |
The State Comptroller’s Office issued a summons Sunday to two former senior Shin Bet officials who were asked to meet with the office’s staff and present documents relating to its wide-ranging probe into the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led onslaught.
State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman and his office have been conducting a broad investigation into the multi-level failures surrounding the attack, and said in a statement to the press Sunday that the Shin Bet falls under the scope of the probe.
The summons was sent by the director of the State Comptroller’s Office, Yishai Vaknin, to the lawyers of the former officers in question, protesting their failure to answer previous requests for meetings.
It said it issued the new summons under a clause of the Law for the State Comptroller, empowering that office to impose sanctions on an individual who fails to comply with such a summons, including a prison sentence of up to two years.
According to the State Comptroller’s Office, requests for meetings were sent to the two former officials in July of this year. But the two failed to coordinate with the agency’s officials, the office said, despite an agreement worked out by the High Court of Justice with the IDF and the Shin Bet, enabling the State Comptroller’s probe into those two bodies. The Shin Bet is Israel’s domestic security and intelligence agency.
Englman’s office has published a series of