Police largely clears itself of wrongdoing after gun-planting incident

Police officers who planted a rifle in the home of an East Jerusalem resident only to “find” it during the filming of a television docudrama will not face any disciplinary or other measures, according to a police investigation of the incident published Thursday that placed the lion’s share of the blame on production company Koda Communications, which completely rejected the findings.

The policemen depicted in the show “shouldn’t be seen as responsible for the events; [they] acted to the best of their understanding for the benefit of the entire organization’s image,” the internal report said.

Ahead of the filming of an episode of “Jerusalem District,” police hid a rifle in the home of Samer Sleiman, a resident of the neighborhood of Issawiya, then made it appear as though they found the weapon there.

After the November 2018 incident was revealed last month by the Haaretz daily and other examples of similar conduct in other episodes of the show were discovered, police issued an apology and Kan removed the show from its online streaming platform. Sleiman, who said he was recognized by neighbors despite his face being blurred, subsequently filed a formal police complaint.

According to Haaretz, police officials claimed that the idea of planting a weapon was raised by a member of the show’s production crew after officers failed to find a weapon when they searched the house. The suggestion was then approved by the senior policeman present.

Samer Sleiman, a resident of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya, at the Justice Ministry’s Police Internal Investigations Department in Jerusalem on August 7, 2019. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

The police probe found failures in the production of the TV series that led the policemen to believe they were “allowed to cooperate with the production and shoot non-authentic scenes, out of the understanding that during the viewing stage the prohibited segments would be censored.”

The probe’s findings have led the police to stop all its cooperation with Koda Communications. Kan announced it was severing its ties with the firm shortly after the embarrassing saga was exposed, accusing production staff of misleading the public and incriminating innocent people.

According to the internal police investigation, the groundwork on the show’s production was sloppy, with production staff communicating directly with the policemen filmed for the series, who lacked defined areas of responsibility or clear guidelines regarding what they were and were not permitted to do.

“Significant shortcomings were found in defining the border between reality and illustration or reenactment,” it said, adding that the police officers did not receive adequate professional guidance before or during the filming process.

הפלסטיני שנשק הושתל בביתו: "החלו שמועות שאני משת"פ" • @Yossi_eli עם הריאיון המלא >> https://t.co/BDLPXddErf pic.twitter.com/nKudG6lPhX

— חדשות 13 (@newsisrael13) August 6, 2019

That led to a situation in which “during filming, the production management in matters relating to police remained in the hands of the production company, whose interests are different from those of police.”

It also criticized the over-reliance on the final editing phases of the show to fix all the problems, which led to inadequate measures designed to hide the identities of the East Jerusalem residents, who ended up being easily recognizable by those who knew them.

One of the conclusions was in the future to have a spokesman at every day of filming to brief the soldiers before, during and after filming.

Koda Communications slammed the police report.

“How unsurprising that the police force produces an internal report that shirks its staff’s responsibility, and suddenly a picture is painted as if the policemen hadn’t seen, heard or said anything,” it said in a statement.

“The claim that the production company can initiate events is completely false, since production was accompanying the policemen,” it added. “Production has no ability to dictate to the Israel Police, commanders and policemen on duty how to act and react in the field. Production’s sole interest was to document police’s dedicated work in the field, and we totally reject any suggestion to the contrary.”