Policemen, civilian charged with brutal assault on Palestinian civilian
Three men allegedly beat Palestinian man unconscious, loaded him into a vehicle and dumped him by a checkpoint, bleeding on the ground
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
A police counterterrorism officer, a Border Police volunteer and a civilian have been charged with badly beating a Palestinian civilian in the West Bank, before dumping him on the roadside by a checkpoint, unconscious and bleeding.
The indictment filed Thursday at the Central District Court by the Department of Internal Police Investigations (DIPI) charged the three men with aggravated assault, abduction and aiding an abduction, for their roles in the violent attack against the Palestinian man in August. They were also charged with illegal possession of weapons and other firearms offenses.
DIPI requested that the three men be remanded until the end of the legal process. It also noted that it has yet to decide whether to indict several other suspects in the case. Nine suspects were arrested in November over suspicion of involvement in the assault after an undercover investigation into the incident. They included four police officers, four IDF soldiers and the civilian.
According to the indictment filed on Thursday, the three defendants, who are all friends, attacked the Palestinian man, who was spending time with his friends at freshwater springs in the Nahal Auja area in the Jordan Valley region of the West Bank, north of the Kochav Hashahar settlement.
The incident began when the Border Police volunteer, Dvir Oni, who was on active duty with another volunteer and IDF soldiers, requested to inspect the identification documents and the phones of the Palestinian men for a security check.
According to the indictment, a picture on the phone of the Palestinian victim showed him draped in a green flag, which “aroused the suspicion” of the police officers and soldiers that he was connected to a terror organization (the Hamas terror group has a green flag).
One of the soldiers then handcuffed the man, after which Oni began beating him, kicking and punching him and slamming his head into a car.
Oni then sent a message to Tiran Galmodi, an officer in the elite Yasam police unit, as well as to Saar Ofir, a civilian, with his location. The two men allegedly arrived at the scene a short while later with their faces masked and took the opportunity to beat the Palestinian man severely all over his body.
Galmodi, who was on suspension at the time of the incident, kicked the man in the head and beat him with a tree branch, and Sofir struck him in the eye with the butt of a dummy rifle he was carrying.
The men beat the victim so severely that he passed out during the assault, the charge sheet said.
At this stage, Oni photographed the man lying handcuffed on the ground and bleeding from the head, and then again kicked and trod on him. One of the soldiers then removed the handcuffs, and the four soldiers present during the assault left the scene.
The victim was then put into Galmodi’s car, and Galmodi and Ofir drove him to the Hamra Checkpoint in the northern Jordan Valley and “dumped” him on the side of the road, unconscious and bleeding. Only several hours later did the man succeed in getting to the nearby road to find medical treatment.
He sustained broken bones and severe injuries to his head and body as a result of the assault.
In addition to the other charges, Galmudi is also accused of obstructing the investigation after he called one of the soldiers involved in the incident and instructed him to give a false account of events.
During the investigation, large amounts of illegally held weaponry and ammunition were found in the possession of Ofir and Galmodi, including assault rifles, hand grenades and thousands of bullets, for which they were also charged.
Ofir, a resident of the Elkana settlement in the central West Bank, was previously arrested in July on suspicion of executing a Hamas terrorist after he was captured by IDF troops in Gaza, but charges were ultimately not filed in that case.
