Please click here for a list of posts relating to cases in which Honenu provided legal counsel to victims of antisemitic attacks in Jerusalem.
Honenu Attorney Menashe Yado; Photo credit: Honenu
Monday, May 20, 2024, 14:52 Recently, the Jerusalem Magistrates Court ordered a public bus driver to compensate a yeshiva student whom he assaulted while on duty in October 2020. This assault is not an isolated incident, and Honenu has handled numerous cases of Arab bus drivers who injured Jewish passengers in unprovoked, racially motivated assaults. (Please click here and here for additional cases.)
The yeshiva student was standing at a bus stop in the Romema neighborhood of Jerusalem next to another man with whom he was not acquainted. When a bus stopped, the student boarded while the other man at the stop beat on the side of the bus. The driver heard the noise, got out of the bus, and chased the man. When the driver returned to the bus, he demanded that the student leave the bus, despite his assertion that he was not acquainted with the man who beat on the bus and was not associated with him in any way. After the student refused to leave, the driver stood up and started to push him, and punch him while vehemently cursing him.
After the incident, Honenu filed a complaint with the police on behalf of the student. Despite the unjustified violence, the police closed the case. Honenu appealed to the State Attorney’s Office, which ordered the police to reopen the case. In the course of handling the case, Honenu received the investigative material, and it turned out that the driver had been investigated about a previous incident in which he spat at an elderly passenger who had boarded his bus.
At the close of an additional investigation, the police filed an indictment against the driver, who admitted his guilt to the Police Prosecution Unit, and was penalized by the court. He was then dismissed by the Egged bus company for which he was working at the time of the incident . Subsequently, Honenu Attorney Menashe Yado sued the Arab bus driver on behalf of the yeshiva student, who was recently awarded NIS 8,300 by the Jerusalem Magistrates Court in compensation for the injury and distress caused to him.
Attorney Yado reacted to the court’s decision: “I am pleased that Honenu’s efforts over the past four years brought the assailant to a trial that ended with his conviction. The assailant was also dismissed from his job at the Egged bus company and ordered to pay compensation to the claimant. There is no doubt that the outcome of this case is a deterrent for other potentially abusive bus drivers and forces them to treat all of their passengers and the general public whom they serve with respect.”