Rights group slams IDF failure to indict soldiers

Yesh Din: Only 6 percent of Military Police investigations into IDF conduct in the territories have culminated in indictments.

By YAAKOV KATZ
Troops Hebron attack 224 (photo credit: AP)
Troops Hebron attack 224
(photo credit: AP)
Only 6 percent of Military Police investigations into IDF conduct in the territories have culminated in indictments, the Yesh Din human rights group revealed in a report published Tuesday. In the report, the group compiled statistics on the number of complaints filed against IDF troops between 2000 and 2007. The Military Police opened 1,246 cases, but only 76 reached the stage of an indictment. Yesh Din said the stats had been provided by the IDF Spokesman. The most investigations - 351 - were launched in 2007, compared to a steady trend of approximately 150 in the previous five years. In the 76 cases, indictments were filed against 132 soldiers, 110 of whom were convicted. In addition to the low number of indictments, the Yesh Din report also revealed a low percentage of commanders or soldiers who filed complaints to the Military Police against comrades suspected of misconduct. Out of 152 investigations launched in 2006, only 14 of them followed complaints from the soldiers' units. In 2007, IDF units filed only 26 complaints with the Military Police. "The low number of investigations that were opened and the tiny number of indictments filed expose the IDF's repudiation of its duty to protect the Palestinian civilian population from infraction by its own soldiers," said attorney Michael Sfard, Yesh Din's legal counsel. "It points once again to the conspiracy of silence in the IDF in all that is related to infractions against Palestinians." The IDF Spokesman did not respond to the Yesh Din report by press time.