Haredim who rioted at home of deputy chief justice intended to physically harm him, police probe said to find

The initial police probe into Wednesday’s extremist Haredi riot at the home of Deputy Chief Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg shows that it was organized in advance with the intent to physically harm the judge, Channel 12 reports.

The rioters arrived on several buses, the report says, quoting a senior official involved in the investigation as saying that the event “was not a spontaneous gathering.”

“They planned to physically harm the judge,” the source says, adding that they would have succeeded “if a large force of riot police had not arrived in time and dispersed them.”

Sohlberg and his wife were at their home in Alon Shvut in the West Bank, when the attackers arrived.

According to the report, the rioters arrived with fake identification cards in an effort to hinder their arrests.

Police arrested 62 people in connection with the incident, which came amid a string of violent demonstrations targeting law enforcement over the arrest of ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers.

“We know who the leader is and who directed them, and we will get to them,” the source adds, according to Channel 12.

“These are people who came to cause a pogrom and leave,” the source says.

Remand hearings for 55 of those arrested will be held tomorrow, the TV report says.

It adds that nobody was arrested in Jerusalem or Beit Shemesh on Friday night when Haredi extremists targeted police and tried to break into the police station in Jerusalem’s Russian Compound, in protests against the arrests of draft-evaders and of the rioters at Sohlberg’s home.