A Rishon Letzion court ordered police Thursday to release three Jews arrested for opening fire on a group of Arab rioters earlier this week.
The court ruled Thursday afternoon against the police request to send the three men, all residents of the central Israeli city of Lod, to house arrest, instead imposing lesser restrictions on the three, including barring them from entering Lod for several days and requiring bail.
In addition, the court moved Thursday to impose a ban on the publication of any details relating to the case which could reveal the identities of the three men – a step taken to shield them from reprisals by relatives of the Arab rioter killed during the riots in Lod earlier this week.
The three men were arrested Tuesday morning, after they opened fire on a mob of Arab rioters between Monday night and early Tuesday morning, as the rioters attacked Jewish homes in the Ramat Eshkol neighborhood of Lod.
The arrest sparked a public outcry, despite initial police claims that the claims of self-defense offered by the three residents of Lod did not fit with the evidence of the case.
On Thursday, however, police representatives in court admitted that the investigation has progressed, removing some of the doubts on the suspects’ claims.
Police also admitted that none of the Arab rioters responsible for attacks on Jewish homes, synagogues, or a yeshiva in Lod during the night in question have been arrested.
Furthermore, police said that while they took testimony from Arab rioters wounded by gunfire that night, those rioters were not interrogated as suspects regarding their involvement in violent attacks on local Jews.