Soccer fans held for suspected beating of Arab mall workers

Three soccer fans were arrested this week for assaulting Arab Israeli mall workers in Jerusalem after a match last month.

Two of the suspects were arrested on Wednesday and the third was detained earlier this week, police said. The three, all of them residents of northern Israel in their 20s, will be brought before a court in Jerusalem to extend their remand on Thursday.

According to police, the three men got into an argument with two Arab workers in the Malha Mall parking lot on January 25, after a match between the Beitar Jerusalem and Sakhnin teams at a nearby stadium. The argument “quickly became a violent brawl,” police said.

The Jerusalem stadium near where the Beitar Jerusalem plays is dubbed “Hell” over its climate of hostility toward visiting teams and their supporters. Police regularly have to deploy reinforcements during matches to prevent violence.

In 2012, several Arab workers in the mall were beaten up by hundreds of Beitar fans in a brawl after a game.

In August, nineteen members of La Familia, a group of ultra-nationalist fans of Beitar Jerusalem, were arrested in a raid that turned up dozens of weapons. The supporters face charges including attempted murder, aggravated sabotage, racist offenses and illegal possession of weapons.

Those fans were charged over violence that included attacks on the supporters of rival soccer teams, according to police. The prosecutor asked for them to remain in custody until the end of the case against them. Nine of them were also charged with drug trafficking.

The ultra-nationalist Jewish members of the La Familia subgroup of Beitar Jerusalem fans, believed to number several hundred, are known for their racist, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiments.

AFP contributed to this report.