Court puts kibosh on promoting cop accused of attacking protesters, in loss for Ben Gvir

The Jerusalem District Court has frozen the promotion of a cop accused of throwing a stun grenade into a crowd of protesters last year, in a blow to National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

The injunction against the decision to appoint Meir Suissa the south Tel Aviv police chief was widely anticipated after the state responded to a petition against his appointment by calling for the court to cancel the promotion.

Ben Gvir promoted Suissa to chief superintendent and appointed him as commander of the South Tel Aviv Police Station at the end of August, despite the Attorney General’s Office instructing the minister that the promotion was impermissible. Suissa is under indictment over an incident in which he allegedly threw a stun grenade into a crowd of anti-government demonstrators in Tel Aviv in March 2023, injuring a woman and traumatizing her.

In its response yesterday, the state argued that the appointment had been rife with procedural issues.

Ben Gvir calls the court’s decision “terrible,” accusing it of judicial overreach and lashing out at Attorney General Gali Baharav-Meira for not allowing him to independently defend the promotion.

“The promotion was completely in line with the law and directives, while the one acting against the law is the attorney general, who intervened in the appointment while clearly outside her mandate, and even tried to stop my position from being heard,” he says on X, adding that he plans to keep fighting for Suissa’s promotion, calling him an “excellent officer.”