Shin Bet chief’s brother, 4 others released to house arrest in Gaza smuggling case

The Supreme Court on Monday released to house arrest smuggling suspect Bezalel Zini, who is the brother of Shin Bet chief David Zini, as well as four others in the case, after rejecting a prosecution appeal to extend their remand, saying that while the allegations against them were “repulsive,” there was no indication the suspects posed a public risk.

The State Attorney’s Office filed an appeal in the Supreme Court last week against the Beersheba District Court’s decision to release Zini and the other suspects implicated in a Gaza smuggling ring, allegedly responsible for trafficking cigarettes and other prohibited goods into the enclave.

In order to keep a suspect in custody prior to conviction, a judge must find that there is a high probability that the individual poses a danger to others or is liable to obstruct legal proceedings if released.

Presiding Supreme Court judge Gila Canfy-Steinitz casts doubt in her ruling on the notion that Zini and the other suspects pose a public safety risk, saying there are flaws in prosecutors’ attempts to attribute to the defendants the offense of assisting the enemy during wartime.

Though noting that it is a “serious and repulsive affair” in which, as the country was under the burdens of war, the suspects sought to “make personal profits for themselves,” Canfy-Steinitz noted that prosecutors have not accused the defendants of direct contact with Hamas or provided evidence that the smuggled goods or their monetary value ever reached the Gaza-based terror group.

The goods themselves, she also pointed out, were not materials that can be used directly to manufacture weapons.

As such, she reasoned, prosecutors were stretching too far in accusing the suspects of offenses relating to aiding an enemy, or even of knowing that their actions could assist the terror group in its military campaign.

Zini, an IDF reservist who headed logistics for forces doing demolition work in Gaza, is suspected of abusing his access to the enclave to smuggle 14 crates of cigarettes from Israel into Gaza on three occasions, earning a total of NIS 365,000 ($117,400). He was indicted in February alongside two others, one of them a fellow reservist, on charges of assisting the enemy during wartime, fraud, and bribery.

Zini has reportedly denied knowing that the cash he received came from smuggling.

A day prior to Zini’s indictment, 12 others, allegedly part of the same larger smuggling network, were charged after supposedly trafficking goods into Gaza on 15 separate occasions.

With the Supreme Court’s ruling on Monday, all suspects implicated in the smuggling ring are set to remain in house arrest until convicted.