Judge Chaim Liran of the Jerusalem Magistrates Court has acquitted a Border Guard policeman of beating IDF Col. (res.) Moti Yogev at the Amona destruction (see below) last year. Yogev is still suffering from the injuries he sustained, including a permanent limp.
The police department's unit for investigating complaints against policemen, which brought the charges against the accused, said it would appeal the ruling.
Orit Strook, of the Yesha Civil Rights Organization, told Arutz-7, "This trial was blatantly characterized by a double standard. On the one hand, the judge based his ruling largely on a video that was illegally submitted after the summation, and without hearing the testimony of the photographer, despite our objections - while on the other hand, he cited technical reasons for refusing to hear the testimony of MK Uri Ariel, who saw the policeman beat Yogev. The judge was very meticulous about procedure when it came to MK Ariel, but quite the opposite regarding the video."
Asked to explain about the video, Strook said, "There was an amateur photographer at Amona who thought he had a video of the Yogev incident, and he rushed to give it to the police. During the course of the investigation, the police realized that the video actually covered a more minor incident, and was not relevant, and so they stopped considering it. The defense lawyer was smart, and at the last minute, after the summation, he presented that video as evidence - and the judge accepted it without checking it at all and without hearing the explanation of the photographer. The judge then acquitted the accused policeman, basing his ruling largely on this video."
What Happened at Amona
On Feb. 1, 2006, hundreds of policeman used clubs and horses to brutally and violently clear the way for the destruction of nine Jewish-built homes. It occurred in the small Jewish hilltop town of Amona, overlooking Ofra, north of Jerusalem. Hundreds of youths were brought to the hospital with injuries in the course of the day.
A documentary film recorded the excessive police force at Amona.
Col. Yogev himself, a leader of the Amanah settlement organization, later told Arutz-7 in a breathless and broken voice, "The police brutally beat me, and they brought in horses with uncontrolled violence. I begged the police commander to get rid of the horses, and they did so only after they left many people bleeding on the ground. This is the cruel violence of Olmert and [then-Defense Minister Sha'ul] Mofaz, and they will not be forgiven."
Witnesses said that Yogev merely tried to have the police stop beating a group of girls standing outside one of the houses. One girl, 18-year-old Bruriah C., told Arutz-7 a few days later,
"It hurts very much... We were standing outside the second house, when very suddenly, the police and their horses came charging into us. One horse jumped... and kicked me; I wanted to leave and walk away, and so did many others of us - but the police didn't let us. They just closed in on us and continued swinging their clubs and beating us... One of the girls was grabbed by two policemen, and I tried to get her away from them. At that point, a Border Guard policewoman gave me a very hard clubbing on my head - it hurt terribly and I felt totally dizzy. I tried not to fall down... they gave me another blow and then I fell down, screaming out in pain. Somehow I got out, and an army medic treated me. I heard them saying that if there was a helicopter available, I should be evacuated to a hospital, but if not, then I should be the first one in an ambulance... At some point, I fainted; I know I wasn't breathing for a while, and they had me on a gas mask... In the hospital, I was lying down the whole time, but I kept seeing more and more of us coming in, bleeding terribly and with severe head wounds and the like..."
Strook said that several other court cases of accusations of police violence at Amona are underway at present.