Senior cop arrested again for allegedly ignoring Jewish attacks in West Bank to win Ben Gvir’s favor

A senior police officer who is already under investigation for bribery and other offenses relating to his alleged refusal to investigate Jewish nationalist crimes in the West Bank is arrested again on suspicion of obstructing the investigation against him and abusing his authority.

The Department for Internal Police Investigations (DIPI) says that Police Commander Avishai Muallem, the head of the Judea and Samaria Police District’s investigations and intelligence department, was arrested because, after he had already been suspended from his position, Muallem requested that his department “remove materials from the police systems and transfer them to him.”

Muallem was arrested by DIPI agents and will be brought to the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court at noon for a hearing, where the department will request he be released under restrictive conditions.

Muallem was arrested over the original allegations in early December and detained for four days, before being released to house arrest.

The investigation against Muallem revolves around the suspicion that his department conducted sham investigations into acts of Jewish nationalistic crimes in the West Bank, merely to give the appearance that probes were being conducted without actually bringing perpetrators to account, in order to please far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.