Beating Palestinians "with no severe harm" does not lead to criminal prosecution

The Israeli Attorney General gave the green light to Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers to continue their attacks on Palestinian citizens as long as they are not cause direct physical injury to them.

This came in the response of the Deputy State Prosecutor of the Israeli Government attorney, Shai Nitzan, to a message from “Yesh Din” human rights organization where he said: “It was decided not to issue an indictment against the two boarder police officers who have humiliated Palestinians from Jerusalem by physical attacks and beatings and only to present them at a disciplinary trial.”

Nitzan, who occupies the highest legal position in Israel after the attorney for the Government, attributed his situation by claiming that the “blows were a slight beating that did not cause any severe physical harm.”

The Foundation for Human Rights, Yesh Din has obtained videos filmed, apparently, by a mobile phone camera belonging to a police officer from the so-called “border guards”. The film shots include two police officers beating three Palestinians who were detained for an identity check. The film also shows a police officer ordering one of the arrested citizens to give the military hand salutes.

Despite the full documentation of the police officers’ actions and their known identities to the prosecution, and in spite of the official complaint filed by Yesh Din since the beginning of the year 2009, the Attorney General and the police officers’ investigation department decided not to present the suspects for criminal prosecution.  And even after Yesh Din appealed for the resumption of the decision to close the case’s investigation file, Nitzan informed Yesh Din representatives that, “even with the police officers’ inappropriate behaviour, the prosecutor decided to take the suspects to a disciplinary trial and not a criminal prosecution.”

Source: Quds Press