MK Son Har-Melech; Photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90
Tuesday, August 6, 2024, 15:12 In February 2023, border police officers and Civil Administration personnel destroyed a vineyard under Jewish ownership near Shilo following a claim that it was situated on “private Palestinian land”. Dozens of protesters arrived in an attempt to prevent the destruction, among them Knesset Member Limor Son Har-Melech (Otzma Yehudit), who obstructed a tractor and was then assaulted by four border police officers. The officers restrained MK Son Har-Melech by trapping her between their arms, and when she tried to escape, they assaulted her. One of the officers pressed up against the MK and thrust his leg between her legs, which could be regarded as an assault and possibly sexual harassment. Honenu Attorney Eladi Weisel filed a complaint with the Police Investigation Unit (PIU) on her behalf and wrote a letter to then Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai demanding that he dismiss the officers responsible for the assault.
For over a year, the PIU did not reply to the demand for an investigation, and when they finally responded they stated that the incident would be handled as a disciplinary procedure, not as a criminal investigation. Attorney Weisel filed a detailed appeal with the State Attorney’s office against the PIU that revealed the failures of the investigation and the systematic cover-up of the incident by the offending officers.
In the appeal, Attorney Weisel cited a video clip of the incident that clearly proves that MK Son-Har Melech was assaulted, and brought as additional evidence a decision by then Border Police Commander, Major-General Amir Cohen to suspend two officers who took part in the incident. Attorney Weisel additionally cited the fact that none of the officers who were involved in the incident were investigated by the PIU, and only one of them was summoned to give testimony, although even he was not investigated as a suspect in the assault. Attorney Weisel revealed that the PIU did not even take the trouble to gather video evidence from the officers’ body cameras of the incident, which could have assisted in their prosecuting. Moreover, he claimed in the appeal that the officers purposely deleted video evidence in order to corrupt the investigation.
Attorney Weisel revealed in the appeal that some of the offending officers filled out police action reports only 11 days after the incident and only after MK Son-Har Melech gave her testimony to the PIU, which raises a serious concern that they obstructed the investigation by coordinating their reports. Also, the testimony of the officer who most seriously violated MK Son Har-Melech’s civil rights and parliamentary immunity is rife with contradictions and inaccuracies regarding the assault. Attorney Weisel underscored Major-General Cohen’s decision to suspend two officers, which indicates the illegality of their actions.
Furthermore, Attorney Weisel leveled sharp criticism at Maj.-Gen. Cohen, the commander present at the incident, for ordering male officers to block MK Son-Har Melech, even though there were many female border police officers at the scene who could have been assigned the task. Thus her religious beliefs would have been respected and her privacy not violated. Attorney Weisel also criticized Maj.-Gen. Cohen for his decision to restrain the MK for the reason that she “did not realize the danger to her life,” according to his action report. Attorney Weisel claimed that the decision was patronizing and led to the humiliating treatment of MK Son-Har Melech. In conclusion, Attorney Weisel demanded that the State Attorney’s office investigate the offending officers and summon additional eyewitnesses whose testimonies could compensate for the absence of video evidence that was deleted by the officers. The deletion of the video evidence must also be investigated.
Honenu Attorney Eladi Weisel commented on the case: “It is sad to see another instance of the PIU failing in their duties. Instead of conducting an effective investigation and putting the offending officers on trial, they belittled the offenses. The complaint is over invasive and brutal conduct. The cover-up shows the criminal negligence with which the PIU performed their duties. The impression received from the incident is that if this is the ‘fate’ of the investigation of an assaulted Knesset member, an assault that received extensive media coverage due to its severity and garnered a slew of condemnations, one should not expect anything from an investigation into the assault of an ‘ordinary citizen’.”
Police brutality during destruction of the vineyard; Video credit: Honenu
Police brutality during destruction of the vineyard; Video credit: Honenu