The Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court on Monday sentenced two police officers to two-and- a-half years in prison after they were convicted of leaving a Palestinian man to die on the side of the road.In May, the court convicted Baruch Peretz and Assaf Yakutieli of negligent homicide for abandoning Abu Jariban, who had been seriously injured in a car accident on May 28, 2008. Jariban was driving a stolen car and was in Israel illegally.The court rejected all police explanations as to why they left Jariban by the roadside on June 12, where he died of dehydration.The primary narrative from the police was they had left him in a public and lit intersection that many Palestinians drive through, and they expected he would be picked up by another Palestinian passing through the area.Judge Haim Liran said there was no possible, rational explanation for how an injured man who was barefoot, in hospital pajamas and had a urinary tract catheter attached to him could be left by the roadside in an unfamiliar area. Most importantly, the court noted he was left without food or water in the middle of the summer.There are also standard procedures that the officers ignored, the court said, including turning a person like Jariban over to Border Police, and notifying their headquarters commander that Jariban was injured.The court ultimately condemned the officers’ actions, saying they had been “completely closed off from” the distress of an injured person and that any human being with the bare minimum of “eyes in his head and compassion in his heart” could not have acted as they did.Jariban was initially hospitalized after the car accident, and then released into police custody. He still required medical attention and rehabilitation, however.Although there was an attempt to admit Jariban to a Prisons Service medical facility, the officers eventually decided to leave him by the roadside since the facility was full.Yonah Jeremy Bob contributed to this report.
