Honenu Attorney Chayim Bleicher; Photo credit: Honenu
Please see here a list of posts relating to cases in which Honenu provided legal counsel to victims of antisemitic attacks in Jerusalem.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021, 13:08 Approximately one month ago, an Arab approached and then attacked a Jew, Y., in Jerusalem at Zion Square. The case was closed without any investigative action having been taken to locate the suspect.
Y. described the attack: “He [the Arab assailant] asked me, ‘Do you have a cigarette?’ I told him, ‘No’. Boom. He punched me in the nose with a glass bottle in his hand. I was thrown a great distance, and I started to bleed a lot.”
As he was heavily bleeding, he hurried to the nearby Lev HaBira Police Station, reported to the policeman on duty that his assailant was close by, and asked for the police to detain the assailant before he endangered other people. An ambulance arrived and evacuated Y. to the hospital.
The following morning he filed an official complaint against the assailant in which he mentioned that there were many security cameras at the site of the attack, which certainly could be used to locate the assailant. Y. also agreed to identify either the assailant or his friends, who are a known group in the area.
However, one week later the police closed the case due to “perpetrator unknown”. Following a letter from Honenu Attorney Chayim Bleicher, the case was reopened, and the police summoned Y. to a meeting, which was canceled two days later. After another week had passed, Y. discovered that the case had been closed again.
Bleicher requested the investigatory material from the police and was surprised to discover that the file contained only the testimony from Y., which he had given on the day that he filed the official complaint. Bleicher filed an appeal against closing the case, in which he stated that despite the description of the suspect that Y. had given, and the location of the attack, and his opinion that there were cameras at the site “there is no absolutely nothing in the investigative material indicating that there was an attempt to locate the incident on the security cameras at the site. Additionally, there was no attempt to contact the intelligence officer in order to locate any of the group (who were with the assailant).
“It is not clear how the case was closed without locating the assailant or any of his friends. The conduct of the police, who summoned an injured crime victim to a meeting, canceled it at the last minute, and chose to close the case in the end, is inexplicable.
“This is a genuine scandal. Such a serious complaint about an injury caused by a glass bottle should not be closed without any investigative action. We think that the time has come for the police to do some soul-searching. We filed an appeal against closing the case.”