One of the regular refrains of critics against Israel over the past 10 months is that it fails to prosecute acts of violence committed by Jews against Palestinians.
But sometimes, the attackers are simply not caught. Then again, five indictments have been filed against security forces for abuse at Sde Teiman. Besides that, 75 military criminal probes and 300 operational ones, concerning soldiers in relation to the war, have been opened.
In addition, there are ongoing cases dealing with terrorist acts enacted by Jews towards Palestinians. These are taking place under the radar, and some are even close to verdicts. The Jerusalem Post has learned that the 2019 indictment against a Jewish minor (his identity is under a gag order) for the alleged killing of Aisha Rabi in October 2018 could be close to a verdict in later 2024 or early 2025.
The minor was charged with manslaughter and Jewish terrorism against Palestinians in an indictment filed by the Central District Attorney’s Office with the Lod District Court.
At the time of the indictment, it was alleged that the minor had thrown a rock that killed Rabi, a mother of eight in her late 40s, as she was sitting in a car driven by her husband near the Tapuah junction because the adolescent’s DNA was found on the rock.
At the time, the fact that the minor was accused not of murder, but only of manslaughter, and that the filing of the indictment was delayed by several weeks, indicated that the path to conviction might prove difficult.
Honenu lawyer Adi Keidar, who is representing the minor, told the Post back then that even the DNA evidence could be challenged in court.
Defense's case will wrap up relatively soon
A spokesman for Honenu, a right-wing legal aid group, said that there was no other evidence connecting the minor to the incident and that the DNA evidence was weak compared to a standard one, as it was found on a moving object – the rock – and not a stationary object, like a wall.
This meant, Honenu explained, that the DNA could have come from a variety of sources, while the rock may have been moved.
The group added that the DNA was of a low resolution. Although hi-resolution DNA evidence can flag a specific person, in this case, the evidence ergo could point to several people.
Keidar pointed out that “fresh” DNA evidence is the best kind – recently found on the object – but in this case, it was not.
Honenu was also optimistic because the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court said at the start of the case that the minor provided an alibi after refusing to speak to the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) during the three weeks prior.
But, the Post has learned that a lot has happened since. The prosecutor’s office laid out its entire case in closed-door hearings (due to the defendant being a minor at the time of indictment) over a multi-year period.
The minor defendant has recently finished testifying for the defense’s case, which may wrap up relatively soon. This may lead to conclusion arguments from both sides and finally, a verdict, one that could lead to years’ worth of prison time.
This would not be the only such case of Jewish terrorists facing justice for violence against Palestinians. Examples include Yosef Haim Ben-David, who killed Palestinian minor Muhammad Abu Khdeir in 2014, and Amiram Ben-Uliel, who killed the Dawabshe family in 2015. In recent years, both were sentenced to life in prison.
In fact, one of the reasons that the Rabi case probably took longer is that the Shin Bet declined to use enhanced interrogation on the minor defendant after the agency’s use of such techniques on Ben-Uliel almost led to a mistrial.
Elor Azaria, Ben Deri, and other IDF soldiers have also been given prison time for killing Palestinians.
Returning to the Rabi case, the Post understands that as part of the prosecutor’s case, extensive evidence has been presented to debunk the defense’s attack on the DNA evidence.
The Post has further learned that the prosecution was able to use a May 2019 decision by the Lod District Court – which addressed various issues in the case – as somewhat of a road map toward conviction.
In that decision, in the context of debates about how long to keep the minor in detention, the court ruled that the prosecution’s chances of conviction were extremely high because of the DNA evidence.
Despite the defense’s arguments, the prosecution presented proof that the chances of the minor defendant just happening to have touched the rock randomly (versus using it as his killing weapon) were minuscule, given that the only other DNA on the rock is Rabi’s, her husband who touched the rock after it hit her, and the minor defendant.In May 2019, the court called such a theory to try to acquit the youngster “blatantly and grossly unreasonable.” Moreover, the prosecution has taken aim at the defendant’s alibi.
According to the prosecution, the minor’s alibi is completely unreliable because he refused to speak – not only throughout his arrest and interrogation on December 30, 2018, but even from October 15, 2018, when he was interviewed as a third party witness before he was considered to be a suspect.
The fact that the defendant would not talk even when he was not yet suspected of anything, the prosecution argued, draws attention to his potential guilt and puts his alibi in question.
In other words, what would he have had to lose by telling law enforcement that he was in a different place from where he would have needed to be to perpetrate the crime, given that, theoretically, he was not worried about facing criminal charges himself?
The prosecution noted that the defendant only produced an alibi once he knew what the final narrative of the prosecution against him would be – as the indictment was about to be filed. The prosecution said that this showed that he was waiting to manufacture and tailor an alibi to the specific charges, and had no true story to tell that stood on its own.
His external evidence to prove his alibi was extremely flimsy, the prosecution argued. It added that it would have seemed more crucial for the defendant to produce hard evidentiary support for his alibi, seeing as he had chosen the risky strategy (implying guilt) by maintaining silence throughout his interrogation.
The Post has also learned that the trial has been going on for four years, (which could lead to global criticism), due to multiple reasons: The Palestinian Authority managed the autopsy; getting those results took time. Both the prosecution and the defense then needed their own experts to examine the results. Additionally, collecting testimony from Rabi’s family members, who are Palestinians, was also complex and took time. Thirdly, the prosecution’s view is that the defense contradicted nearly every fact presented, including that Rabi was killed at all, forcing the prosecution to present a large amount of preliminary evidence not even specifically related to the defendant’s alleged guilt.
In addition, because the Shin Bet was involved, there were extensive disputes regarding which investigative materials were classified, for national security reasons, and which could be presented openly as evidence to the defense.
There were also delays relating to debates over wiretapping and other classified eavesdropping evidence.At times, the coronavirus crisis likely slowed things down, and the court itself did not especially prioritize the case to run on a weekly basis, sometimes with large amounts of time passing in between hearings.
In 2018-2019, the Shin Bet called the killing “full-fledged terrorism,” in a statement, alleging that attempts were made to obstruct the investigation and to spread lies about the agency.
Moreover, the Shin Bet more broadly accused the indicted minor and some unspecified others, possibly including the other four minors originally arrested, of being affiliated with radical Jewish groups seeking to overthrow Israeli democracy and establish a new Jewish theocracy.