The Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office filed an indictment on Sunday in the
Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court against Dor Oved, 21, for resisting arrest, illegal
weapons possession and causing intentional property damage based on racist
motivations.
According to the indictment, on March 4, the defendant, who
lives in Mevaseret Zion, parked his car in a lot near the town of Shiloh where
cars with Palestinian Authority-issued license plates, owned by Palestinians
working in the town, were parked.
The defendant damaged several cars,
including puncturing the back wheel of one car, breaking a front headlight of
another car and breaking mirrors on two other cars, said the
indictment.
Next, it alleged that the defendant spray-painted messages on
four cars that said, “Death to the Arabs,” “Love from the valleys,” “Revenge
revenge” and “Price tag price tag,” along with a symbol of a Star of
David.
Policemen Avi Rahamim and Avi Ben- Ami eventually arrived on the
scene and tried to detain the defendant.
However, according to the
indictment, Oved succeeded in freeing himself from the police and started to run
away before one of the policemen ran after him and caught him again. The
defendant continued to resist arrest, kicking the policeman and calling him a
“Nazi.”
The indictment alleged that, in a search of the defendant, the
police found two knives and other weapons, such as tear gas.
The state
requested to detain the defendant until the end of the proceedings, based on the
evidence it obtained at the scene of the crime, the defendant’s past, similar
crimes and his dangerous character as testified to by his alleged
actions.
In July, the defendant was convicted and served two months in
prison for similar racist acts, as well as harassment and threats against Peace
Now activists.
The defendant already faces a potential additional four
months in prison for having violated the conditions of his suspended sentence
from the earlier crime. As part of that agreement, Oved agreed to refrain from
committing a similar crime for at least another three year.
Speaking at a
year-end event for the Judea and Samaria Police District on Sunday, Public
Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said that “price tag” incidents and
racially motivated attacks are “the disgraceful language of extremists who take
the law into their own hands.
We will continue to deal harshly with these
incidents.”
In response to the “price-tag” attack, the Tag Meir activist
group held a rally outside the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem on Sunday
evening denouncing the wave of racially motivated vandalism.
Ben Hartman
contributed to this report.