Engineer to serve 9 months for negligence in Mount Herzl death of IDF officer
Bereaved mother welcomes jail term for Oren Varshebski, who was responsible for lighting rig that fell in 2012, killing Lt. Hila Betzaleli, 20
The Jerusalem District Court on Sunday sentenced an engineer to nine months in prison for negligence over an incident that led to the 2012 death of a young IDF officer.
Lieutenant Hila Betzaleli, 20, was killed when a lighting rig collapsed at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl site during a rehearsal for the Independence Day ceremony slated to take place that year. The collapse also injured seven other Israeli soldiers.
Oren Varshebski, the engineer for the site, received the sentence after the State Attorney’s Office appealed his earlier sentencing of just 400 hours of community service.
Betzaleli’s mother, Sigalit, welcomed the court’s decision.
“I believe in the court and in our country. We want to live in a better place, and today it is proof that we are taking another step to make it better, and that those who fail or commit crimes will be prosecuted,” she said, according to Hadashot TV news.
In a confrontation with Varshebski outside the courtroom, the bereaved mother told him that he has “no right to be an engineer in Israel ever again.
“You have been convicted and we are ruined. Please, please, no more,” she said.
Varshebski’s attorney Oren Schwartz said he intends to appeal the sentencing, and will take the matter to the Supreme Court if necessary.
“We must remember that in this kind of disaster, they are not bad people who wake up in the morning and want the death of others,” Schwartz said.
Yitzhak Tzuker, the safety consultant at the site, was initially sentenced last year to four months’ community service work outside the prison.
Last month the Jerusalem District Court accepted the State Prosecutor’s Office’s appeal against Tzuker’s sentencing, and increased it to six months of community service while requiring him to pay compensation of NIS 10,000 (approximately $2,500) to Betzaleli’s family and to two soldiers who were injured in the incident, Ynet news site reported.
In return, Tzuker withdrew an appeal he had filed of his sentence and announced he would take responsibility for his actions.
Sigalit Betzaleli had responded angrily after hearing the initial lighter sentences in June 2018.
“My Hila died for nothing. This was greed, they wanted ‘the biggest ceremony,’ but the world moves on and only my Hila pays a price. How are they not fit for prison?” she said at the time.
During an earlier hearing, the Betzaleli family argued in the courtroom that a meaningful sentence would save lives by sending a message that there would be a price to pay for negligence.
The investigation by police and prosecutors lasted almost three years, after which indictments were filed against seven people and a company that helped produce the ceremony — Itzuv Bama, which built the lighting structure.
The indictments noted that the people employed to build the structure did not have the professional expertise required for the job, and that it was carried out without the mandated planning and oversight by qualified engineers. The result: company employees slapped together a makeshift anchoring system that, once the rig was lifted into place, collapsed almost immediately.
Two officials from Itzuv Bama were sentenced to six- and seven-month prison sentences in a December 2016 plea bargain.
The Times of Israel Community.