Israeli court lenient on soldiers who abused Palestinian Taxi dispatcher

Tuesday September 02, 2008 07:01 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

The Jaffa Israeli Military Court handed down lenient rulings against Israeli soldiers who attacked a Palestinian Taxi-dispatcher in the southern West Bank city of Hebron in January 2008. The soldiers were indicted on charges of severely abusing the Palestinian man, forcing him to strip naked, and assaulting him with rifles until he lost consciousness.

The taxi dispatcher was identified as Ziad Abu Sneina. He was ordered to fully undress, yet in refusing to remove all of his clothes, the soldiers kicked, punched, and hit him with their rifles.

The Israeli army totally rejected the allegations and claimed that soldiers tried to subdue the man after he became “uncontrollable.”

The court ruled that three soldiers of the Kfir Brigade will receive active prison terms ranging between 67 days and five and a half months. They were found guilty on a small number of charges against them, although the prosecution wanted a more grave indictment.

Two of the indicted soldiers will be released in the coming days as they are expected to finish serving their terms soon because they were in detention for the duration of the court proceedings. A third soldier, also indicted, will not be imprisoned because he already served his entire sentence.

All indicted soldiers were demoted by one rank although the prosecution demanded that they should be demoted to the rank of private.

Witnesses testified during the trial that two of the soldiers arrived at the taxi station in Hebron and started smashing the side mirrors, windshield wipers and lights of taxis parked at the station.

Abu Sneina approached the soldiers in an attempt to convince them to stop but they ordered him to undress. Later on, one of the soldiers dragged Abu Sneina to the military jeep where he was handcuffed, kicked and abused for nearly 15 minutes.

Some of the relatives of Abu Sneina arrived at the scene and were also violently attacked by the soldiers.

Soldiers then released the relatives of Abu Sneina but continued to attack the taxi dispatcher after covering his face with a Palestinian Kafiyya scarf. He was then thrown into a pond, where the soldiers continued hitting him until he lost consciousness.

When he regained consciousness he was ordered to fully undress and circle their jeep five times if he wanted to be set free.

Israeli Ynet News reported that, Yevgeni Yaakubo, the lawyer for the defendants stated that they denied all allegations and said that the soldiers were attempting to subdue the Palestinian man. The lawyer also said that the complainant falsified the facts.

The Court rejected the testimony of the Palestinian man and said that several charges brought against the soldiers are false. One of the soldiers was convicted on two accounts of abuse; the second on one account, while the third was convicted of aggravated assault.

The Israeli Human Rights group Yesh Din slammed the court ruling and the lenient punishment against the soldiers and stated that this punishment proves that the military courts are not genuinely interested in sentencing the soldiers in accordance with the law.

The group added that it doubts the results of the military probe, as the Israeli Army could not be trusted in investigating abuse carried out by its own troops.

hebron | israeli attacks | news report saed at imemc dot org