4 men indicted over riot by Haredi mob at home of deputy Supreme Court chief

Four men accused of rioting at Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg’s house earlier this month become the first to be indicted in the incident at the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court.

The defendants, all residents of Beit Shemesh, are accused of joining a mob of more than a hundred Haredi extremists who rampaged at the judge’s home in the West Bank settlement of Alon Shvut on June 3, causing extensive property damage in a riot against ultra-Orthodox conscription.

They are indicted solely on charges of rioting, with state prosecutors declining to accuse them of property damage or assault.

Two of the defendants, suspected of entering the garage where Sohlberg’s car was parked, are charged with trespassing.

Rioters smashed the windows of Sohlberg’s house, damaged his car and additional property, threw rocks and blocked the road leading to his house.

One of the judge’s neighbors was also attacked by some of the rioters, prosecutors say, after he and other residents went outside to try to stop the riots. The neighbor was beaten and one of the participants snatched the kippah off his head.

A police car that arrived at the scene “was forced to distance itself after participants in the incident ran towards it while shouting various slogans,” prosecutors add.

Prosecutors disclose in the indictment that two buses and one minibus transported the defendants and other rioters to Sohlberg’s home that night.

The identity of the person or organization who arranged the transportation remains unknown to law enforcement.

Police initially arrested 65 suspects who had boarded a bus to flee the scene of the riot, and brought 62 for remand hearings in court. Daniel Shimshilashvili, a lawyer representing the suspects, claims that all those arrested that day, save for the defendants, have been released from police custody.