Case against policeman who beat Ethiopian soldier closed
Judge rules fault for not indicting the policeman who attacked Damas Pakada lies with prosecution, not with former AG, and for that reason he has no grounds to overrule the decision to close the case.
The High Court of Justice rejected Wednesday petitions against the plea deal proposed to the policeman who was filmed beating Damas Pakada, an IDF soldier of Ethiopian descent, back in 2015.
As part of the agreement, the policeman will admit to the charges in the draft indictment, but will not be convicted or get any jail time. Instead, he will only be reprimanded and fined.
"Even if there is something to the plaintiff's claims about the severity of the actions attributed to the policeman, it is not enough to justify our intervention in the attorney general's decision on how to handle this matter, because in my view it is not flawed to an unreasonable degree," Justice Yoram Danziger wrote in his ruling.
Danziger added that though he rejected the appeals, in hindsight, it might have been right to indict the policeman after all.
"The release of the video documenting the incident by the media has touched a 'nerve' with the Israeli society, which proves beyond any doubt that the public does indeed have a great deal of interest in the matter at hand and its results, and it might have been right to make a different decision about (the policeman's) indictment," he wrote.
In January 2016, current Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit announced that he was considering reopening the investigation against the former police officer following a petition filed by Pakada against Weinstein's decision to close the case. The policeman filed his own petition to the High Court, claiming the court had no authority to reopen the case.
In March, Mandelblit informed the High Court of the deal that was offered to the police officer.
Mandelblit wrote that "a reevaluation of the facts revealed some inaccuracies in the way the chain of events that transpired was described in the previous attorney general's decision." He added that "the use of force in the incident did not begin with Pakada's pushing the policeman, but with the policeman pushing Pakada and his bicycle."
The attorney general added that "even though the policeman allegedly used unnecessary force, no measure was taken against him for this, not even on the police disciplinary level."
