Cop gets 3 months probation for assaulting teen

"This just gives the cops a license to abuse people,” says the father of a boy who they say was beaten by a Karmiel officer.

By BEN HARTMAN
Thinkstock Israeli police 370 (photo credit: Thinkstock)
Thinkstock Israeli police 370
(photo credit: Thinkstock)
Anger and bewilderment descended upon an American- Israeli family from Miami on Tuesday, when the Haifa Magistrate’s Court handed down a sentence of three months probation for a Karmiel police officer they say beat their teenage son repeatedly while in custody in November 2009.
“Justice in Israel is bullshit. What type of person is going to come forward and complain now? This just gives the cops a license to abuse people,” said Lior, the father of the abused “S.”
In early May, the magistrate’s court convicted police officer Amir Rabah of assault and obstruction of justice for his part in a terrible saga of physical and sexual abuse suffered by S., who moved to Israel with his parents from the United States.
Rabah was one of three police officers accused of beating S. in a squad car after he was picked up for urinating in public one night in November 2009. Rabah struck S. before taking him to the Karmiel police station, where he and two other officers were suspected of beating him repeatedly while his parents heard his cries from outside the interrogation room.
The other two police officers, Ataf Barkat and Rimon Hinawi, were found not guilty of assault and conspiracy, with judges saying that it was ultimately their word against that of S. Rabah was found guilty largely because a fellow police officer witnessed the beating and came forward to testify.
In the court’s ruling on Tuesday, the judges say that Rabah only slapped S. in the squad car, which it says was “not serious violence” and caused the complainant no injury. In addition, they said that they took into consideration what they said was the fact that S. spit at Rabah and insulted his family, and that they could not prove that S. was beaten while in the interrogation room at the Karmiel police station.
The judges also referred to Rabah as a moral, veteran police officer who carries out his job with devotion, adding that while the incident was a dereliction of duty, it did not illustrate his true character as a police officer.
After S. was picked up by the police, a small amount of hashish was found on him and he was taken for a five-day remand extension at the Kishon maximum security prison, where he was repeatedly gang-raped by three juvenile offenders.
The rapists were convicted in July 2011 of aggravated sodomy and aggravated assault for the attack, during which they marked S. as their “slave” by piercing his ear with a piece of electric cable.
Amir Meltzer, who is representing the family, said that in the coming months, he will present a lawsuit against the Israel Police for the assault on S. and against the Prisons Service for the trauma he suffered while in custody.