Top prison official gets community service for whipping prisoner

Visam Hative beat a prisoner with a baton and whipped him with a belt on October 28 2016.

A guard keeps watch from a tower at Ayalon Prison in Ramle. (photo credit: REUTERS)
A guard keeps watch from a tower at Ayalon Prison in Ramle.
(photo credit: REUTERS)
A senior official from Ramle’s Ayalon Prison was sentenced on Thursday by the Ramle Magistrate’s Court to six months community service for whipping a prisoner.
Visam Hativ was the commander of security for the prisoner wing there until he beat a prisoner with a baton and whipped him with a belt on October 28, 2016.
The prisoner had failed to leave his cell for roll call that day, angering Hativ.
Rather, than taking standard disciplinary measures, Hativ repeatedly beat and whipped the prisoner, continuing to beat him while he had fallen to the ground. Hativ did not stop until other prison guards separated them.
Hativ then falsified the official report on the incident, claiming that he had acted in self-defense to repel an attack by the prisoner.
He was also fined NIS 5,000 by the court.
The court said that the prison official must have a criminal record and sentence because of the severity of the beatings and his high rank, but also did not give him jail time in light of his clean criminal record, his confession to the crime once charged and the fact that he was already punished by being fired from the Israel Prison Service.