(IsraelNN.com) A police disciplinary court ruled that two policemen were guilty of brutally beating a 15-year-old teenager from Samaria (Shomron) because he did not show an identification card, which he legally could not obtain until he was age 16. The policemen were fined 1,200 shekels ($315) and found guilty of unnecessary violence, but no criminal charges were filed.

The youth, Yaakov H., was standing at a hitchhiking station in northern Samaria in 2005 when a passing police vehicle stopped and asked him for his identification card. The incident took place during the period that the government ordered authorities to clamp down on protestors against the plan to expel thousands of Jews from their homes in the Gaza region and parts of northern Samaria.

Despite the boy's appeal that the police check his identification through their computer, the policemen dragged him into the vehicle, where they made him lie down on the floor with his feet dangling outside, and beat and kicked him.

Two soldiers, who were at a nearby guard post, and a third soldier who was in the area, testified that they tried to intervene but that the policemen refused to stop beating the boy. The Human Right Committee of the Council of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria secured the release of the youth and a complaint was filed with police.

The police disciplinary court ruled that although the policemen had the right to arrest the youth and can use force if necessary, “It would have been preferable not to use their authority in this case so long as it was possible to find out details on the youth.”