Supreme Court overturns child rape conviction

In a dramatic move, the Supreme Court overturned a child rape conviction Tuesday, saying a man convicted for the crime was free to go after serving several years of a lengthy prison sentence.

Businessman Nissim Haddad was convicted two and a half years ago of raping his girlfriend’s 18-month-old son and sentenced to 17 years behind bars. The Supreme Court nullified the conviction, ruling that there was not enough direct evidence for a conviction.

According to the 2013 ruling of the Tel Aviv District Court, Haddad became romantically involved with the mother of the baby three months before the incident. Once, while the mother was sleeping in his apartment, Haddad took the child to the gym in the basement of the building.

When the child’s mother awoke she saw that Haddad was changing her son’s diaper, which was full of blood. She took the baby to Wolfson Medical Center where he required surgery and was hospitalized for six days.

Haddad claimed that the boy had caused the damage to himself, though doctors testified that it would have been impossible for him to have done so.

Haddad was convicted based on medical opinion and DNA evidence linking him to the injuries. The building’s security cameras showed him taking the healthy baby down to the gym and returning some time later carrying the child.

In its ruling at the time, the Tel Aviv court said that it was one of the worst cases of sexual abuses ever to occur in Israel. “The age of the child and the physical damage inflicted on him, not to mention the psychological damage this can cause, require the maximum sentence,” said the judges at the time.

But in quashing the conviction Tuesday, Supreme Court Justice Salim Joubran said that having heard the arguments, he had concluded that the charges had not been proved beyond all reasonable doubt. “There is no direct proof connecting the appellant to the act of sodomy that has been attributed to him. His conviction in the ruling of the District Court is based on a tapestry of indirect evidence,” said Joubran. Therefore, he felt compelled to overturn the conviction.

Nevertheless, Joubran added, “this incident is difficult to bear. My heart goes out to the family of the baby who went through this traumatic ordeal.

“I did not easily come to my ruling, which means that most likely we will never know what happened to the baby or how he received his injuries,” said the judge.

Judge Isaac Amit, who disagreed with the other two judges, said, “Even if no single proof is enough to prove the guilt of the appellant, the accumulation of evidence,” along with the lack of any other reasonable explanation of how the child received his injuries, led him to a single conclusion, “that he is guilty.”

Judge Meni Mazuz, agreeing with Joubran, stated: “This was an agonizing decision that literally caused me to lose sleep. But the strength of the evidence did not permit us to reach a definitive conclusion as to the appellant’s guilt or innocence.”

The Israel Prisons Service has begun the process of releasing Haddad from custody.