Slippery Slope

The Justice Ministry’s Police Investigations Unit decides in many cases not to pursue criminal cases against police officers, opting instead to return the cases to the police  where it is handled by the disciplinary court. (Haaretz)

(Hebrew – Haaretz)

The police internal investigations unit reported that during the last 5 years there have been 13 cases of intelligence officers cooperating with criminals. “Crossing the lines to criminal organizations occurs at all levels of the organization”, said sources in the unit, “from the Heads of Central Units, to junior coordinators”.

(Hebrew)

Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court ordered the Justice Ministry’s Police Investigation Unit to open a probe against police officers suspected of attacking three East Jerusalem residents.

The Police Investigations Unit filed an indictment against a Border Guards officer from the north and his underage brother (17), for the assault and stabbing of a man in a forest in the Kiryat Tivon area, after the victim asked them to dispose of their empty liquor bottles.

(Hebrew)

For four and a half years police officers and the Sheba Medical Center have been throwing the blame around for the negligent abandonment of illegal alien Omar Abu Jariban, which ultimately lead to his death.  Abu Jariban was released from hospital to police custody following his involvement in a traffic accident and without having received sufficient medical care.  Senior officers in the Rehovot police station decided, after their efforts to admit Abu Jariban to a Prison Service hospital failed, to release him at a roadside in the West Bank, without food or drink.  Following an investigation by the Police Investigations Unit an indictment was filed against officers Baruch Peretz and Assaf Yakutieli for negligent homicide.  With the trial yet to begin, Yakutieli has been appointed an instructor in a police operations school, and Peretz has been named officer in charge of volunteers at the Lod police station.

High Court of Justice Judge Salim Jubran stated that the police deliberately avoided investigating the leaks from the investigation of Former President Moshe Katsav and is still declining to do so. Jubran quoted Yoav Segalovich, Head of the Police Investigations Unit, who led the Katsav investigation, as saying that he decided to focus on the main allegations rather than pursue side investigations to find the leaks. He attested that just like he refrained from investigating the seemingly problematic conduct of the defense during the affair, so did he refrain from investigating the leaks.

(Hebrew)

The police and police investigation department staff raided the homes of the policemen who wrote the “Exposed In The Police Care” blog and confiscated computers. This was part of a search for people responsible for exposing the name of a woman who complained two years ago about a sex crime she suffered at the hands of a policeman. The forum deals primarily in the exposure of police failures, and high ranking officers appear by name there, in unflattering contexts. (Hebrew)