אסון בנחל צפית

The Southern District Attorney's Office today filed an indictment in Be'er Sheva District Court against Yuval Cahan, who headed the Bnei Tzion Pre-Military Preparatory and against Aviv Berdichev, the former director of the preparatory educational program.

The indictment attributes to the two felonies of negligent manslaughter and causing serious injury, for their responsibility for the deaths of 10 students in the preparatory school and candidates to study there, and for the injuries of two of them, in the disaster that occurred in April 2018 in Nahal Tzafit.

The indictment was filed after the prosecutor's office informed the defendants that State Attorney Shai Nitzan had decided to adopt District Attorney Alon Altman's recommendation, and dismissed their arguments raised at the hearing. A notice of the decision was also given to the families of those killed.

The indictment states that despite the obvious and immediate flood danger that was known to the defendants, and despite repeated warnings that came to their notice before and during the trip, including knowledgeable and expert warnings about the danger of rain and flooding in the area, the defendants did not cancel the excursion to the stream, and especially to the narrow part of it.

"In their prohibited acts and omissions, the defendants caused the deaths of ten members of the group and the serious injury of the two recruits, negligently, while they took an unreasonable risk of causing the said harsh results, hoping to prevent them," the indictment states.