Tel Aviv District Judge Gilad Neuthal partially upheld on Sunday a lower court decision to release the two young women suspected of involvement in the lynch-murder of Leonid “Arik” Karp on a Tel Aviv beach Friday night.
One of the women, a 17-year-old from Petach Tikva, was sent to house arrest and the second one, a 19-year-old soldier from Kfar Saba, was remanded to prison custody for three additional days. Police had appealed the lower court’s decision to release both women to house arrest Saturday night.
Judge Gilad Neuthal / Israel news photo (Courts.gov.il)
MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) sent a letter to Justice Minister Yaakov Ne’eman Sunday asking him to ascertain whether Judge Neuthal is “balanced and deserves to sit on the bench of the Tel Aviv District Court.” Ben-Ari said Neuthal had a discriminatory approach against Jewish female minors suspected of nationalist activities, as opposed to the women suspected in the lynching.
The female soldier suspected in the lynching / Israel news photo: Flash 90.
Ben-Ari noted that Judge Neuthal ordered a minor girl from Hevron distanced from her own home and placed under supervision in her grandmother’s home after she was suspected of spraying graffiti near a military commander’s home. He observed that the minor suspected of involvement in the murder of a Jew was placed under less strict conditions of home arrest.
Emergency Knesset Session
Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin instructed the Knesset’s Interior Committee to hold an urgent session Wednesday to discuss the lynch-murder and other violent crimes that have occurred recently. The session will be attended by representatives from the police and other relevant agencies.
The Kadima faction also requested a special session of the Knesset to discuss “the intensification of crime and undermining of the personal security of Israel’s citizens.” The request for the session was signed by 25 of the faction’s MKs, as required.
Like much of the news coverage surrounding the lynching, the request did not single out the event as a nationalistic one or as part of a wave of nationalist crime by Arabs, but lumped together various violent crimes that occurred recently.
Urban Police Urged
MKs Zev Bielski and Aryeh Bibi (Kadima) called Sunday for the establishment of urban police forces under the control of local government authorities. They said that this move, which has been in the planning phase for several years, could provide much-needed security for Israel’s citizens.
The main opposition to the establishment of local police forces stems from concern that they could become corrupt bodies that would serve local government officials in persecuting their political opponents.