A 13-year-old boy was charged with aggravated rape Sunday after having been arrested
in Netanya a week and a half ago.
The boy escaped from a juvenile correction facility in which he had been placed for committing a large number of criminal offenses.
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"We decided to look into his age," a police official told Ynet. "Such offenses at such an early age seemed unlikely. We checked the Interior Ministry records, which said that he was 13. We decided to summon his sister, who is 35, to the station. She said that her daughter is 15 and that she remembers that her brother, the suspect, was born half a year earlier. So he is in fact 15.5. He cannot be 13."
The indictment filed with the Petah Tikvah District Court says the boy approached the complainant, a 30-year old woman, on the street and asked her for a cigarette. She gave him one, but he continued to follow her to her building.
In the stairwell, the prosecution claims, the boy attacked the woman. When she attempted to call for help he took away her cellular phone, beat her, grabbed her by the neck, and banged her head against the stairs.
After subduing the woman he raped her, stole her purse, and fled the scene, the indictment says. It charges the defendant with aggravated rape, theft, and violation of legal orders. Police have also appealed for the remand of his arrest until the termination of proceedings against him.
Attorney Uri Keinan, a public defender in charge of pleading the boy's case, said he would tell the court Sunday that the request for the remand of his client's arrest was unlawful, as an amendment to the youth law prohibits this if the defendant is below 14 years of age.
Keinan said he would ask that the boy be released. Previously the defendant was released for precisely this reason and transferred instead to the juvenile correction facility, from which he escaped.
The police, however, have determined that the boy is 15 years old.
According to the police, the mistake made in the youth's official documents stemmed from the fact that when his family immigrated from Ethiopia it failed to provide official documents, and the dates of birth written in the identity cards were estimated ones.
Following the sister's testimony, the police decided to ask the court to instruct the Interior Ministry to change the boy's age to 15.5. "We believe that the evidence we have proves the boy's real age," a police official said. "If the court accepts the request, the boy will not avoid sitting in prison this time for what he has done."
Raanan Ben-Zur contributed to this report
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