Suspect in Jerusalem assault on public employees to remain in custody until tomorrow night

One of the suspects in a brutal assault on two Arab public employees in Jerusalem this morning will remain in custody until tomorrow night, police say, after a Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court judge ruled on the matter.

He is to stay in detention for an extra day, despite the police’s request to extend his remand for several days, given the “severity of his actions and extreme violence he used earlier this morning.”

He was arrested alongside his accomplice, an 18-year-old, for assaulting a bus driver and a sanitation worker in the capital’s Ramot neighborhood. The pair had been roving around on a motorized bicycle in the northern neighborhood this morning when they ran into an Arab sanitation worker sweeping the sidewalk.

They dismounted the bike and threw him to the sidewalk — one of the suspects pummeled him in the face as the other kicked him several times. Police say the young men left the sanitation worker with broken teeth and a rib fracture.

The pair moved on to a bus driver in the area. One, who was wearing tzitzit, was seen filming the driver from the outside of the bus. His friend, meanwhile, damaged one of the vehicle’s rearview mirrors. They attacked the bus driver as well, however were not caught on film during the act.

The driver, named Muhammad Ismail, was hospitalized with a broken arm at Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus as a result of the assault.