Woman acquitted of alleged 2024 assault on Environment Minister Idit Silman

A court has acquitted a woman who had been accused of assaulting and threatening Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman last January, with the judge criticizing the minister and police over the case in her verdict on Wednesday.

Silman claimed that Yarden Mann, an activist in the anti-judicial overhaul protest movement, had slapped and threatened her during a confrontation at an outdoor shopping center in the central city of Rehovot in January 2024, leading to Mann being thrown in jail for several days.

Announcing Mann’s acquittal, the Rehovot Magistrate’s Court determined that evidence from witnesses and the Likud minister was apparently unreliable.

“Silman had difficulty giving a reasonable version,” said Judge Karen Wexler, according to the Ynet news site, additionally noting contradictions in the other testimonies given in the case.

“I had difficulty finding credibility in the witnesses’ testimonies,” Wexler said. “There was one who said in her testimony to police that she saw a slap, but in court she no longer saw a slap but a ‘raised hand.’ There was one who told police he heard ‘the sound of a slap,’ but it is doubtful whether he was even there as he claimed.”

However, Mann’s testimony “is consistent with the objective evidence,” Wexler determined, referring to surveillance footage.

According to the Walla news site, the court found that after Mann turned away from Silman and began to move away from her, the minister followed her and blocked her path, filming her and bringing her cellphone closer to the defendant. At that point, Mann moved her hand toward the phone.

The judge said that the incident happened in “the blink of an eye,” and determined that Mann’s reaction had been “automatic and involuntary, out of a reflex, designed to protect her face and eyes,” according to Ynet.

The judge said that while Silman was lightly hurt and her phone was damaged, it was an “accidental result,” and that there had been no intention on Mann’s part to harm the minister.

Police said the incident began when Mann began to film Silman. They cited as evidence partial footage that showed the initial confrontation but not the alleged assault, and eyewitness testimonies.

Mann was arrested a few hours after the incident and charged within 24 hours. She denied that she had assaulted Silman.

השרה עידית סילמן הגישה תלונה על תקיפה שעברה לכאורה על ידי אישה בת 52, מורה לחינוך מיוחד. המשטרה עיכבה את האישה, בחשד לתקיפה, בתיעוד נראה שהאישה מצלמת את סילמן, אבל לא תוקפת אותה בשום שלב. אז מה נסגר? pic.twitter.com/SmBnlK3SxV

— Yossi Eli (@Yossi_eli) January 24, 2024

On Wednesday, the judge criticized police, saying they had “rushed to draw conclusions about the incident” and asked Mann inappropriate questions about her political viewpoint during the interrogation.

“Puzzlingly, at the beginning of her interrogation, the defendant was asked whether she belonged to any political group. A question that was not only inappropriate, but also irrelevant to determining her guilt,” the judge wrote.

Mann welcomed the ruling, but warned that there could be future, similar prosecutions.

“Justice has been done. Today it’s me, but tomorrow it could be you, or your daughter, or your son,” Mann said.

The case against Mann was not the first time Silman claimed to have been assaulted.

In 2021, she said she was physically harassed at a gas station in Modiin, but investigators closed their probe after they failed to find witnesses to confirm the incident.