Nazareth hit-and-run driver charged with deliberately hitting cop

The driver of a car who ran over a policeman in Nazareth last month, leaving him in a critical condition, was not insured for the vehicle and deliberately hit his victim, according to an indictment filed Monday.

George Garib, 20, was charged at Nazareth District Court over the hit-and-run incident that left 49-year-old Sergeant First Class Natan Yossipov bleeding in the road.

According to the police, Yossipov had begun a regular afternoon shift in Nazareth on February 28, and at 7 p.m. set up a roadblock on Tawfiq Ziad Street to carry out spot checks on passing vehicles.

Yossipov spotted a Mazda 3 car approaching, and indicated with his flashlight for the driver to pull over at the side of the road.

The indictment claimed that although the driver saw the officer’s signals, he did not stop and instead swerved towards the policeman, running him over before driving off at breakneck speed.

“This is a serious incident in which a police officer was attacked with a vehicle in the line of duty and left bleeding and without any assistance offered,” the police said.

In the immediate aftermath of the incident, police launched a widespread search to find the vehicle, including the deployment of roadblocks and a helicopter in order to cut off any possible escape routes. Police were initially unsure if the incident was a terrorist car-ramming or a genuine road accident.

The police said that an hour after the incident, Garib turned himself in at a Nazareth police station, accompanied by his father, and was permitted to meet with an attorney before being questioned.

Garib admitted that he had taken his mother’s car without her knowledge, despite not being covered by her insurance policy. Later that night, he and police officers returned to the scene in order to reenact events for investigators.

Police originally suspected the incident may have been a terror attack, as it shared some characteristics with the car-rammings of recent months.

Yossipov is still hospitalized in a critical condition in the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa.