שוברים שתיקה
שוברים שתיקהPhoto by Tomer Neuberg/Flash90

A month after determining that Dean Issacharoff, spokesman for Breaking the Silence, lied when he said he'd beaten an Arab during his military service, the prosecution reopened the case, Channel 2 reported this evening.

Breaking the Silence is a radical left Israeli NGO which maligns the IDF by having soldiers tell of alleged IDF atrocities in Judea and Samaria during their period of service.

According to the report, the reason for the renewed investigation, among other things, is that the Arab who was interrogated is not the man allegedly beaten by Issacharoff.

Breaking the Silence said in response that "at the opening of the case, the State Prosecutor's Office effectively cancels its decision that Dean lied - an important and just step to be welcomed."

The prosecution said that "any relevant information that raises suspicion of an alleged offense justifies an examination of the possibility of opening an investigation."

About a month ago, the Deputy State Attorney decided, with the consent of the State Attorney, to shelve the investigation file in Issacharoff's case.

The investigation had been opened after Issacharoff said in a video that he had beaten an Arab during his military service in Hevron. Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked asked State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan to open an investigation, which revealed that the incidents described by Issacharoff never occurred.

The file closure letter states that "during the investigation, the suspect was interrogated, testimony was taken from the suspect's company commander during the relevant period, and various investigation materials were collected. From all the evidence, it appears that the incident described by the suspect matches only one incident, in which an Arab named Hassan Julani was arrested in February 2014.

"In his interrogation, the suspect did not deny what he had said, adding details about the date and circumstances of the incident in question, and the suspect even noted that 'I had to use force to arrest him' and that it was not possible to handcuff the Palestinian without the use of force.

"In his statement, Julani confirmed that he was arrested after throwing stones at soldiers, as the suspect described. However, Julani denied that his arrest was accompanied by any form of violence on the part of the soldiers, except for the use of force to handcuff him, which was necessary in view of his resisting being handcuffed. Julani claimed that he had not been beaten or bruised, was not bleeding, dizzy or faint.

The investigation material found in the file that was opened against him following the arrest shows no indication of a complaint about force used against Julian. No injuries to his body were identified, and these would have required recording according to IDF procedure. Julani's version of the incident was consistent with the version of the company commander who was present at the scene and who describes the circumstances of the arrest in the same manner as Julani describes."

The prosecutor's office concluded, "From all of the above, it is clear that the suspect's version of his beating Julani until he 'bled and fainted' was contradicted by Julani himself, by the suspect's commander, and by other investigation materials found in the file. The investigation material and the testimonies indicate that the allegation is false, and therefore it was decided to close the file opened against him suspecting him of using harsh and unjustified violence on grounds of lack of guilt."