Slippery Slope

A Border police commander was convicted of committing sex offenses to a policewoman who served under his command.

(Hebrew – mynet)

Soldiers and Border Police officers prevented Palestinian herders from grazing their sheep in the area of the village of Umm al-Amad, but did not prevent masked settlers from Othniel from threatening the herders. (Haaretz)

(Hebrew – Haaretz)

The Jerusalem district court convicted former border police officers Assaf Kone, Mevorach Benyamin, Buziar Farhan and Dor Yakobi on charges of aggravated assault and abuse of a helpless person for their involvement in a 2009 incident in which they abused a Palestinian. The group arrested the man – a mentally disabled Palestinian – and took him into their jeep, where an unleashed dog awaited him. The group then proceeded to beat, curse and pour water on the man. Yakobi was convicted of aggravated assault, the remaining three were convicted of intimidation.

Four Border Guard officers were charged with abuse after they put a Palestinian, apparently suffering from mental illness, inside a jeep with a dog, threatening to let the dog attack him, and pouring water on him, all because he did not have his identity card with him. The incident occurred at the El-Jib checkpoint, near Givat Ze’ev, north of Jerusalem.

(Hebrew – Mako)

Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court judge Hanna Miriam Lump acquitted two left-wing activists from charges of insulting a public official and interfering with a public official in his duty, determining that the testimonies of Border Policemen against the two were not reliable, since the policemen coordinated their testimonies and the indictment was served only after the activists filed a complaint with the Department for the Investigation of Police Officers against one of their arresting officers.

(Hebrew – Haaretz)

The police internal investigations unit appealed to the District Court in Petach Tikva to increase the punishment of two border police volunteers, Itay Arazi and Shai Sulam, who abused four Palestinians arrested for illegal stay in Israel. The accused humiliated the detainees, and instead of discharging them near a security checkpoint close to their home, they took their coats and shoes, and left them in a remote area on a cold winter night. The accused also threw a stone at the detainees “as if they were animals to be chased away”. The Magistrate Court in Rishon Leziyon did not convict the two, and settled for a punishment of 200 hours of public work.

(Hebrew)

Jerusalem’s Prosecutor’s Office will cancel all charges against Udai Biomi, Resident of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina, who was held for 21 days on charges of aggravated assault of a police officer based on the testimony of two Border Police officers.  CCTV footage shown in the courtroom revealed that it was actually Biomi who was assaulted by the officers. (Haaretz)

(Hebrew – Haaretz)

Asaf Kintzer Berdugo claims he witnessed ten border police troops attacking a black man in Neve Sha’anan neighbourhood in south Tel Aviv.

(Hebrew)

Pini Shendorfi, a soldier in the Netzach Yehuda battalion (Nahal Haredi), refused an order to relieve Border Police officers, who were slated to evict several illegally constructed buildings in the settlement of Yitzhar. (The Yeshiva World)

(Hebrew – HaKol HaYehudi)

Border police officer, Omri Abu, has been acquitted, on the grounds of reasonable doubt, of the shooting death of 10 year old Ahmed Moussa, during a demonstration against the separation fence near the West Bank town of Na’alin. (Haaretz)

(Hebrew – Haaretz)