Staff Sgt. in Azaria trial: 'He never shot out of malice'
Sgt. Elor Azaria's Staff Sergeant testified Sunday in the special military court in Jaffa, insisting that the defendant 'never behaved like a thug,' before slamming his commanders for 'trying to cover their own backsides.'
Speaking at the special military court in Jaffa, T. he said that Azaria was “professional” and “caring. He never thinks of harming anything. He never expressed himself in an attacking manner against Palestinians.”
T. added that “He never used his power as a weapon and that is why I have testified before the Criminal Investigations Division (CID) that Azaria did not behave like thug. I would not have left the area if I had known the terrorist was moving. I told the CID that I don’t believe Azaria shot out of malice. “
“The commanders presented Azaria in a negative light in conversations after the incident. We spoke with soldiers asking them not to rebel over the treatment towards Elor,” he continued, adding that the conversations conducted by the company commanders with the soldiers influenced them. “It undermines you, influences you and affects your understanding. I felt as though the soldiers were trying to cover their backsides and saving themselves because they never prepared us enough. The company commander, just like the platoon commander, showed the same signs of disrespect, kind of boycotting Azaria. When I was investigated the CID I was under a lot of pressure from the company to get in line with the spirit of the commander.”
Turning to the overall atmosphere at the scene, T. described one of uncertainty and disorder. “We were never drilled on how to close off the scene of an attack. They never ever went over instructions that the company commander spoke about. The commanders didn’t really take command or say what to do,” he insisted. “Nothing was clear at the scene before Elor’s gun shots. It seems that even the commanders at the scene were confused and no one got the disorder under control. The soldier who was wounded in the attack told me when I got to the scene: ‘They stabbed me but I killed both terrorists.’ I didn’t sense any threat at the scene because I thought both terrorists had died (before Elor’s gun shots), but I did worry about a continued attack and I thought that this attack was a diversion for another attack. We didn’t know what was coming next. There was chaos and a lot of noise. There was a feeling of chaos at the scene.”
