The Appeal (H)
On 18 July 2007, Adalah filed an appeal to the Attorney General (AG) against the decision of the Ministry of Justice’s Police Investigations Unit (“Mahash”) to close the file of a police brutality complaint submitted by Mr. Hassan Suleiman al-Uqbi in April 2007. In the complaint, Mr. al-Uqbi demanded an investigation into police officers who assaulted him. Adalah demanded that the AG cancel Mahash’s decision and compel it to conduct a full investigation into the case.
On 18 April 2007 at approximately 10 a.m., a police officer from the Rahat police station named Yoal Bervitsker assaulted Mr. al-Uqbi, who is 66 years old. Mr. al-Uqbi attempted to ask an officer from the “Green Patrol” why they had dismantled a protest tent in Rahat, and whether or not they had obtained a court order to do so. The Green Patrol falls under the authority of the Israel Land Administration, the Jewish National Fund and the Ministries of Agriculture and of Defense, and uses violent and aggressive means including home demolitions to drive Arab Bedouin in the Naqab (Negev) from their land. Officer Bervitsker attacked Mr. al-Uqbi from behind. He bound his hands together violently, injuring his hand so that his palm was covered in blood. Further, an indictment was filed against Mr. al-Uqbi for assaulting a police officer, whereas he was the person violently attacked by police.
Mr. al-Uqbi was subsequently detained at the police station. Initially no medical assistance was offered to him although he repeatedly requested to see a doctor; only hours later was he allowed to see a doctor, who mocked him and accused him of feigning being in pain and of lying even before examining him. Mr. al-Uqbi was then moved to a detention facility in the Naqab. There, police officers confiscated the medicine that Mr. al-Uqbi takes monthly, and did not provide him with any medical treatment. On the following morning, he was brought to court for an extension of detention hearing. The court ordered Mr. al-Uqbi released, and later that day his brother took him to the Soroka Hospital, where doctors placed his right hand in a plaster cast for forty days.
Mr. al-Uqbi filed a complaint to Mahash on 22 April 2007. A month later, Mahash decided to close the file on the grounds of “lack of public interest”.
In the appeal, Adalah Attorney Fatmeh El-‘Ajou argued that Mahash’s decision clearly indicates no investigation into the complaint was undertaken, as Mr. al-Uqbi was not called to testify, for example, and Mahash did not investigate any of the police officers at the scene. Attorney El-‘Ajou emphasized that Mahash failed to fulfill its duty to investigate and did not assign public importance to uncovering the facts and indicting and punishing those responsible. Therefore, Mahash failed to fulfill its duty to the public, which clearly signifies that it has not learned the lessons set forth in the report of the Official Commission of Inquiry into the Events of 2000 (“the Or Commission”), published in September 2003.
In the appeal, Adalah vehemently refuted Mahash’s claim that the complaint should be closed for “lack of public interest”. Adalah argued that it is unclear how the trial of police officers who assaulted an elderly man would harm the interests of the public. At the same time as society is demanding an end to police violence against citizens, Mahash is closing files without conducting investigations.
A prosecutor’s power to close a criminal file on the ground of “lack of public interest,” is contained in article 62 of the Penal Law. According to this article, the public prosecutor is authorized to close a file “if the public prosecutor believes that the investigatory materials and the evidence are sufficient to submit an indictment against a person, but the trial has no importance for the public.” Therefore, Attorney El-‘Ajou emphasized that Mahash’s decision in this case confirms that Mahash recognizes that there exists sufficient evidence to convict police officers, but did not view the issue to be of public importance.
Adalah further contended that Mahash failed to provide the reasons and considerations that led it to close the file. Mahash chose to shirk its responsibility. Nor did Mahash explain its decision, but instead selected to take a shorter route, deciding that the case is not of public importance, in order to cover up its shortcomings and the fact that it did not investigate the complaint in a serious and genuine manner.