State indicts alleged price tag vandal

According to indictment, defendant wrote "death to Arabs" on cars, called police who arrested him a "Nazi."

By YONAH JEREMY BOB
Car with punctured tires, "price tag" graffiti [File] (photo credit: Melanie Lidman)
Car with punctured tires, "price tag" graffiti [File]
(photo credit: Melanie Lidman)
The Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office filed an indictment on Sunday in the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court against Dor Oved, 21, for resisting arrest, illegal weapons possession and causing intentional property damage based on racist motivations.
According to the indictment, on March 4, the defendant, who lives in Mevaseret Zion, parked his car in a lot near the town of Shiloh where cars with Palestinian Authority-issued license plates, owned by Palestinians working in the town, were parked.
The defendant damaged several cars, including puncturing the back wheel of one car, breaking a front headlight of another car and breaking mirrors on two other cars, said the indictment.
Next, it alleged that the defendant spray-painted messages on four cars that said, “Death to the Arabs,” “Love from the valleys,” “Revenge revenge” and “Price tag price tag,” along with a symbol of a Star of David.
Policemen Avi Rahamim and Avi Ben- Ami eventually arrived on the scene and tried to detain the defendant.
However, according to the indictment, Oved succeeded in freeing himself from the police and started to run away before one of the policemen ran after him and caught him again. The defendant continued to resist arrest, kicking the policeman and calling him a “Nazi.”
The indictment alleged that, in a search of the defendant, the police found two knives and other weapons, such as tear gas.
The state requested to detain the defendant until the end of the proceedings, based on the evidence it obtained at the scene of the crime, the defendant’s past, similar crimes and his dangerous character as testified to by his alleged actions.
In July, the defendant was convicted and served two months in prison for similar racist acts, as well as harassment and threats against Peace Now activists.
The defendant already faces a potential additional four months in prison for having violated the conditions of his suspended sentence from the earlier crime. As part of that agreement, Oved agreed to refrain from committing a similar crime for at least another three year.
Speaking at a year-end event for the Judea and Samaria Police District on Sunday, Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said that “price tag” incidents and racially motivated attacks are “the disgraceful language of extremists who take the law into their own hands.
We will continue to deal harshly with these incidents.”
In response to the “price-tag” attack, the Tag Meir activist group held a rally outside the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem on Sunday evening denouncing the wave of racially motivated vandalism.Ben Hartman contributed to this report.


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