Charges of beating Arabs dropped for PM security guards
Six men, who served as guards for PM Olmert in 2008, were accused of using excessive force against two Arab gardeners; One has been convicted, while the others were disciplined internally.
Two years ago, the Police Internal Investigations Department planned to file indictments against the six, subject to a hearing. Only one of the security guards was indicted, but a deal was signed as part of the legal proceedings in which he was not convicted, but sentenced to 120 hours of community service and had to pay restitutions to the victims.
Two of the guards have since left government employment, and so the case files against them have been expunged. The other three were severely reprimanded and their wages were expropriated.
In August 2008, when then-PM Ehud Olmert was in his home, two gardeners, Abu Najma and Abu Jamal, passed by. They were working in the Jerusalem neighborhoods of Rehavya and Talbieh and arrived near the PM's residence wearing gardening clothes and carrying equipment, including a spray can and hedge clippers.
The guards asked them to present their IDs, but the gardeners refused. More guards arrived on the scene and a altercation began, in which the gardeners were beaten with fists to their stomachs, chests, and heads.
The two gardeners began to bleed and a Magen David Adom (MDA) ambulance was called. They were treated and taken to Shaare Zedek and Hadassah Ein Kerem hospitals.
While the internal investigation was ongoing, the two gardeners filed a civil suit against the public security ministry, in which a the state agreed to settle for NIS 200,000 without admitting to the prosecution's charges. "Two victims were bodily harmed and hospitalized in a state considered medium-to-severe, and at the end of the day the criminal case was closed due to lack of interest by the public," said the gardeners' lawyer, Nasser Ali.
Ariel Atari, the lawyer representing one of the guards who's charges were dropped, said, "Internal affairs were convinced that the violence used by the guard was completely justified."
