Police begin work to actualize recommendations made by Yaron Commission.
By REBECCA ANNA STOILkaradi dichter 298(photo credit: Channel 10)
As the dust settled and the news cameras turned to other, more pressing headlines, detectives gave serial rapist Benny Sela a day to rest Sunday, even as within the police four top-level teams began work to actualize the recommendations made by the Yaron Commission a day before Sela's re-arrest.
Israel Police Chief Insp.-Gen. Moshe Karadi announced Sunday morning that he had added a fourth team to his original three that he had appointed Friday. The fourth team, led by Cmdr. Aharon Franco, will check the way that all of the police units participated in the operation to apprehend Sela, examining the intelligence, investigative and operational performance of police throughout the search and eventual re-arrest of Sela.
'Sela left details of victims in cell'
The nation's top cop attended the first meeting Sunday to examine the possible ways to carry out the recommendations of the Yaron Commission's final report, which was released Thursday. At the meeting, Karadi announced that the teams had ten days to complete their findings.
Karadi also met with IPS Chief Warden Yaakov Ganot later in the afternoon, hammering out together the basis for the work of the teams dealing with the transfer of the services of prisoner escort and detention from the police to the IPS. In the coming days teams from the two organizations will begin to work through the details of the complex process.
The three other teams working to fulfill the commission's recommendations all held their first meetings on Sunday as well. One team led by Cmdr. Bertie Ohayon head of police operations will check the operation of all of the prisoner escort units in the police as well as police detention facilities in order to determine whether they are performing adequately, as well as addressing the Yaron Commission's recommendations for partnership with IPS.
The second team led by police manpower chief Cmdr. Gabi Gal will look into the sensitive issue of what to do with the nine police officers whose behavior was cited by the Yaron Commission as possibly deserving of reprimand with regard to the events surrounding Sela's escape. Ultimately, the team will submit recommendations to Karadi after hearing the nine police officers testify in their own defense.
A third team headed up by Head of Police Planning Cmdr. David Karuza, was charged with handling the negotiations with the IPS concerning the handing-over of both prisoner escort units as well as detention facilities to the prison organization.
Meanwhile, the star of the scandal, Sela, remained out of sight behind the walls of Rimmonim Prison's national isolation unit. Tel Aviv District detectives said Sunday that they did not question Sela Sunday in order to give him a chance to rest, but that soon they would begin the process of determining how and where the rapist spent two weeks evading the biggest criminal manhunt in Israel's history.
