During proceedings, judge refuses to let Sela go to car to get his paperwork.
By JPOST.COM STAFFbenny sela capture(photo credit: Channel 10)
The Tel Aviv District Court rejected on Thursday one of two petitions submitted by convicted serial rapist Benny Sela protesting the conditions of his imprisonment.
Sela was captured a month and a half ago after escaping from police custody in late November.
During the course of the hearing, Sela claimed that the Prison Service had confiscated his legal papers, and requested permission from the judge to leave the court to retrieve them from his mother's car. While the request elicited many laughs from those present in the courtroom, the judge did allow Sela's mother to fetch the paperwork.
The hearing took place in the same court building where Sela slipped away from guards in late November. This time, however, Sela was brought to court under heavy security, restrained at both his hands and his legs.
Sela was sentenced in December 2000 for sexually assaulting 14 women in the Tel Aviv area and is suspected of involvement in almost 40 sexual assaults and rapes in the 1990s. Before he was arrested, Tel Aviv women lived in fear of what police dubbed in 1999 the 'Tel Aviv serial rapist.'
