Honenu Attorney Menashe Yado; Photo credit: Honenu
Wednesday, December 8, 2021, 15:09 Despite a complaint filed by Honenu Attorney Menashe Yado, who is representing the complainant, the Police Investigation Unit (PIU) closed a case against a policeman who threatened to file a false complaint of assault against a detainee. In the letter sent by the PIU to Honenu, they wrote that the circumstances of the matter do not justify continuation of a criminal investigation, because a criminal investigation is not a suitable framework for its investigation. The PIU stresses that they reached their conclusion after a preliminary examination of the incident, and the results were sufficient to shed light on the entire incident.
Honenu Attorney Menashe Yado: “The PIU closes cases time after time without investigating and without genuinely examining the incident, only because a policeman is a ‘protected value’ and the complainant is assumed to be a liar. In this manner the PIU fails in its duty, does not straighten out the policemen and severely violates the dignity of the complainants and the trust of the public in the police.”
The incident occurred on the afternoon prior to the onset of the Passover holiday (March 2021). Policemen arrived at the home of the complainant, a Jerusalem resident, to conduct a search and detain him. Throughout the search, the complainant filmed the policemen on his cell phone, and when he was taken to the police car one of the policemen, O., demanded the phone. At this point the complainant replied that he had left his phone at home. In response, the policemen conducted an additional search of the home, which is illegal.
As the police car left for the police station, O. turned to the complainant and claimed that he had demanded that he give him his cell phone. However the complainant replied that that was incorrect. The complainant’s answer was unacceptable to O., who then asked one of the other policemen to turn off his camera so that he could demonstrate how the complainant had supposedly assaulted him. O. asked the rest of the policemen to record the assault in their police action reports. When they arrived at the police station, O. repeated his request to the other policemen, which the complainant heard.
The complaint filed by Yado over the incident states that the threat by O. that he will file a false complaint is a “serious threat”, which violates the integrity of the judicial/investigative process and amounts to false testimony, fabrication of evidence, disruption of legal proceedings and more.
In conclusion, Yado recommended that the youth undergo a polygraph test regarding the circumstances of the complaint in order to validate his statements and ensure a thorough investigation. Additionally, Yado asked to examine the police action reports of the policemen from the incident and also the video clips documenting the ride to the police station.