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Yesh Din Case File 1299/07

Conviction for abducting and

severely abusing a boy

A The incident: abducting a boy and severely

abusing him
On the afternoon of Tuesday, July 24, 2007, A., a 15 year-old boy, took his family’s
goats out to graze. A. grazed the goats with two of his friends in an area between
their village, Qusra, and the outpost of Esh Kodesh. Around 3:15 p.m. the boy noticed
a green ATV with two settlers in it heading their way. The three boys tried to escape,
but when A. heard shooting he stopped running and raised his hands in the air. A.
identified the driver of the ATV as the person who had violently attacked him and his
friends a few months earlier. In the previous incident the same person had beaten A.
and three of his friends and then kicked a newborn goat and killed it.

In the present incident, the two settlers got off the ATV next to A., and one of them,
who was sitting in the ATV next to the driver, began to hit A., with, among other things,
the rifle he was carrying. Then the passenger tore A.’s shirt and wrapped it around
his eyes so he could not see what was happening. At the same time, the driver of the
ATV chased after one of A.’s friends. Some time later the driver came back and the
two dragged the bleeding A. into the ATV while continuing to beat him. The two tied
A. to the ATV between them and began driving. During the ride A. was hit and lost
consciousness.

Sometime later water was poured on A.’s covered face and

he woke up in an unknown location. A. heard Hebrew being
Photo provided courtesy

spoken around him. In a conversation between two people

near where he was lying one asked in Arabic, “should
I shoot him?” A. was beaten again and taken to an open
of A’s family

field where he was beaten, undressed and left naked, with

his hands tied and his shirt covering his face. After a while,
A. managed to remove the shirt from his face and walked
A. in hospital after his assault

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to the nearby road, where he was picked up by a passing car, whose passengers
covered his naked body and returned him to the home of his relatives in the village. A.
suffered from bruises and cuts on different parts of his body and was hospitalized for
treatment in a Nablus hospital.

B Yesh Din’s intervention: helping the prosecution

contact the witnesses and bringing them to court
to testify
On the very day of the incident, A. and his friends gave testimony to Israel Police
officers, and an investigation was opened in the Samaria and Judea [West Bank]
Police District Central Unit. A few days later, Yesh Din volunteers came to the Village
of Qusra, collected testimony from those involved in the incident, and received power
of attorney from A. and his father allowing the organization to represent the victim in
monitoring the law enforcement agencies’ processing of the case. After intelligence
led the investigators to three suspects, identification lineups were held, in which A.
and one of his friends identified one of the suspects as the driver of the ATV and a
participant in the assault: Z., 28, a resident of the outpost of Esh Kodesh.

At the end of the police investigation the case was transferred to the review of a
prosecutor from the Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office. The prosecutor requested
Yesh Din’s help in contacting some of the witnesses.

In response to Yesh Din’s constant monitoring of the processing of the investigation,

in January 2008 the prosecutor informed Yesh Din that a draft indictment had been
prepared against the suspect. The decision to file the indictment was postponed by
another year in anticipation of a hearing that was supposed to be conducted with the
suspect, but which was repeatedly postponed by the suspect on various pretexts.
Only after the indictment was filed in December 2008 did the hearing take place, in
which the District Prosecutor rejected the suspect’s reservations.

After the indictment was filed and the defendant had denied the charges against him,
the prosecution requested Yesh Din’s help in summoning a few of the witnesses for
a meeting with the prosecutor prior to testifying in court. With considerable effort,
the Yesh Din staff managed to coordinate a meeting between the prosecutor and
some of the witnesses at a police station to prepare them for testimony. During the
evidentiary hearings in court, Yesh Din volunteers escorted the witnesses from their
homes in the West Bank to the District Court in Jerusalem, thereby guaranteeing that
their testimony would be heard in court. During the defense’s argument Yesh Din was
asked to help present a Palestinian witness whom the defense wanted to testify. Yesh
Din accepted the request and helped bring that witness as well.

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 Yesh Din Volunteers for Human Rights

On November 14, 2010, more than three years after the incident, Z. was convicted
of the serious crimes with which he had been charged: for assaulting A. in July 2007,
Z. was convicted of aggravated assault and abduction for the purpose of aggravated
assault; for the previous incident of assaulting A. and his friends and killing the newborn
goat, Z. was convicted of three counts of assault and one count of assaulting an
animal.

C Yesh Din’s activity: helping to ensure due process

The vast majority of complaints submitted by Palestinians for offenses committed by
Israeli civilians against them and their property are closed without an indictment being
filed. The data of Yesh Din’s multi-annual monitoring of hundreds of investigations in
which the organization represents Palestinian victims shows that 90% of those cases
are closed without an indictment. The vast majority of those cases are closed due to
the investigators’ failure to identify the suspects or to collect sufficient evidence for
their prosecution.

Even when indictments are filed, the chances of that due process standards will be
satisfied are slim. For one thing, the victims of these crimes and other Palestinian
witnesses need to exert major effort in order for their testimony to be heard in court.
As Palestinians, the witnesses must obtain entry permits into Israel in advance, and
they must collect those permits before the day of testimony; on their way to Israel
they might be delayed at checkpoints and therefore miss the scheduled testimonial
hearing. Furthermore, many Palestinians are afraid of retaliation based on the fact that
they gave testimony against Israelis, in the form of harassment or the denial of various
permits. The fact that many Palestinians do not trust the Israeli law enforcement
authorities also means that when a prosecutor files an indictment he must take into
account that he may not find witnesses to prove the charges in court, even if those
witnesses provided evidence to the police during the investigation.

On this level Yesh Din’s volunteers and staff play an important role in guaranteeing the

..
rights of victims of crimes to receive redress from the Israeli criminal justice system
and in helping the justice system maintain full and due process.
Yesh Din’s legal team represents victims of crimes via direct contact with
the investigation and prosecution authorities, monitors the processing of the

..
procedures and offers the organization’s assistance to the work of investigation
and prosecution authorities;
The organization’s field researchers maintain direct and regular contact with the

..
victims and eyewitnesses and facilitate communication between the victims and
witnesses and the law enforcement agencies;
The organization’s volunteers drive and escort the victims and witnesses from
the West Bank to the courts and back to ensure that they have their day in court.

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