Court upholds conviction of police officers who left Palestinian to die

Officers convicted of negligent homicide of Abu Jariban, who was killed in a car accident while driving stolen car, receive reduced sentence.

By YONAH JEREMY BOB
Police car370 (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Police car370
(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
The Jerusalem District Court on Monday upheld the conviction of two police officers for the negligent homicide of an injured Palestinian man who they left by the roadside to die in 2008, while reducing their prison sentence from 30 months to 21 months.
The Palestinian, Abu Jariban, was seriously injured in a car accident on May 28, 2008, while driving a stolen car. He was in Israel illegally.
In July 2012, the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court first convicted the two police officers, Baruch Peretz and Assaf Yakutieli, of negligent homicide for leaving Jariban to die.
Jariban was hospitalized at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, after which he was released into police custody. But he still required medical attention and rehabilitation.
Although there was an attempt to admit Jariban to an Prisons Service medical facility, since the facility was full, the officers decided to leave him by the roadside.
Peretz and Yakutiela appealed the magistrate's court ruling to the higher level district court, which while it rejected their claims for acquittal, said that their prison sentence was overly severe.
The district court said that the maximum theoretical sentence for such negligent homicide was 36 months, but that the typical sentences actually being handed down were much less, making 21 months more in-line with standard practice.
When the magistrate's court handed down its 30 months sentence, it had recognized that the sentence was more severe than average, but had justified it by calling the policemen's behavior particularly problematic.
Also in September 2012, the state agreed to pay NIS 875,000 in compensation to Jariban's family in the name of the two police officers, and in the name of the medical center.