Ex-warden claims he was fired, framed over refusal to go easy on Jewish inmates

A former prison warden, who was fired over sexual harassment allegations, has claimed the accusations were fabricated as part of a politically motivated plot to oust him, after he refused to exercise extra lenience with Jewish prisoners jailed for nationalist crimes.

In a petition submitted Sunday to the High Court of Justice, Junior Commissioner Shai Parnasa, the former warden of Ayalon Prison in Ramle, claimed he was pressured by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Israel Prison Service chief Kobi Yaakobi to ease conditions for Jewish detainees, particularly those jailed for nationalist violence.

Parnasa said he ignored this pressure several times, which, according to his account, led his superiors to falsely accuse him of harassing a young female subordinate.

The sexual harassment case against Parnasa was eventually closed by the State Attorney’s Office, which determined he bore “no criminal guilt” and ruled him out as a suspect in the act. He was, however, tried and convicted by an internal disciplinary tribunal run by the Prison Service and subsequently fired from his post. Parnasa insists that the conviction was politically motivated.

According to Ynet, the warden was accused by a subordinate of inappropriate conduct over texts — inviting her to go clubbing, inviting her to an evening on the beach and asking her to send him pictures of herself in civilian clothing.

She testified to the tribunal that she felt he was prepared to prevent her from receiving promotions should she refuse his advances.

Included in Parnasa’s petition are some 40 messages and recorded conversations that he asserts prove he was subject to pressure from Ben Gvir and Yaakobi, via their close advisers, the outlet reported.

In one instance, Parnasa reportedly refused to grant visitation rights or end solitary confinement for convicted murderer Amiram Ben Uliel, who killed a Palestinian couple and their baby in a 2015 firebombing.

In another WhatsApp conversation, Ben Gvir’s aide Shlomi Cohen requested that Parnasa grant a conjugal visit to Shlomo Pinto, who is serving an 11-year sentence for stabbing a Jewish man whom he mistook for an Arab, in a bungled revenge attack.

Another adviser to the far-right minister requested that extremist settler David Chai Chasdai — charged with assaulting four Israeli Bedouin women and a 2-year-old girl who mistakenly drove near his West Bank outpost — be granted weekly, rather than bi-monthly, visits from family.

Meanwhile, Yariv Cohen, an aide to Yaakobi, asked Parnasa to cancel solitary confinement for Elimelech Stern, a Hasidic man charged with spying and carrying out missions on behalf of Iran.

In his appeal to the High Court, Parnasa requested that judges overturn the decision to fire him and reinstate him as Ayalon Prison’s warden. He filed the petition against Ben Gvir, Yaakobi, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, State Attorney Amit Aisman, and the Shin Bet, among others.

Responding to the petition, Ben Gvir accused the ex-warden of “trying to escape responsibility by fabricating accusations against a third party.”

“The incident involving the senior prison service official who was convicted after confessing to attempting to force himself on a young female prison guard is extremely serious,” the minister’s office said in a statement. “During Minister Ben Gvir’s tenure, there is a zero-tolerance policy toward sexual harassment and abuse of authority.”

The IPS also denied Parnasa’s claims, claiming that the ex-warden voluntarily left the prison service after agreeing to a plea deal that led to his conviction by the internal tribunal.

“This involves an officer who was recently convicted by the disciplinary tribunal after admitting, as part of a plea deal, to a series of serious offenses of inappropriate conduct… It is not for nothing that the officer also agreed to be dismissed from the organization as part of the deal,” the agency said in a statement.

In speeches given to his supporters, Ben Gvir has frequently touted his own efforts to harshen conditions for Palestinian security prisoners, including barring them from family visitations and meetings with legislators, and reducing their food rations.

Unlike criminal detainees, security prisoners are held for committing what Israel classifies as security offenses — often nationally-motivated crimes ranging from gruesome terror attacks to publishing incendiary content online.

The vast majority of security detainees are Palestinian. Jewish security detainees are typically held for extremist violence and, more recently, espionage on behalf of Iran.