ISRAELI JUDGE OVERTURNS CONVICTION OF VIOLENT POLICEMAN AT AMONA

Israeljustice.com

  JERUSALEM -- In a rare decision, an Israeli judge overturned a conviction against a violent policeman who admitted to assaulting a peaceful anti-government protester.  
    In a sentencing hearing at the Jerusalem Magistrates Court, Judge Yehezkiel Barkali overturned the conviction of police officer David Atia. Atia had admitted to head-butting with his helmet David Ledwin, 21, who was leaving a protest against the government's demolition of nine homes in the West Bank Jewish community of Amona in February 2006.  
    "When I weighed the seriousness of the act against the ramifications of the conviction I was convinced that the conviction of the defendant would cause him an injustice," Barkali said on Jan. 1. "Because it wouldn't take into account his past and present contribution to society. The defendant committed an offense and I stand by my decision on this but not withstanding this, the degree of the seriousness of the offense and the circumstance within which it took place justify ending the case this way."  
    Barkali said he accepted the probation officer's recommendation to close the case without a conviction. Instead, the magistrate sentenced Atia to 300 hours community service and ordered him to pay $405 or 1,500 shekels compensation to Ledwin.  
    Earlier, Barkali convicted Atia of assaulting Ledwin without provocation.  
    "During the eviction, he [Atia] head-butted with his helmet the head of David Ledwin, and this without any provocation from the youth or any attack from the youth," Barkali said on July 21. Barkali stressed that Atia could have arrested Ledwin but instead chose to assault him.  
    During the trial, Ledwin testified that as he was leaving Amona, he passed by Atia whom he said was attacking a young girl and he called at him.  
    "Aren't you ashamed?" Ledwin reportedly said to Atia.  
    At that point, Ledwin said Atia head-butted him with his helmet.  
    "I must stress that in the video we see clearly that the defendant head-butted the defendant only once, assumedly in the wake of things said by the complainant," Barkali said. "This fact points out that we are not speaking about impulsive harsh violence but about an outbreak of very limited violence. To avoid a misunderstanding it should be said that the act was not justified but it is important to weigh the circumstances and to remember that we are speaking about a violent event like the dispersion of an unusually serious demonstration."  
    At least 250 Jews, most of them minors, were hospitalized with light to serious injuries, resulting from police brutality, during the destruction of Amona. Police violence included beating demonstrators with night-sticks and trampling them with horses.  
    "We think that this decision will lead to more police violence and we expect the unit for investigating police to appeal this," Orit Struk, head of the Judea and Samaria Human Rights Organization, said.  
    Struk said that the unit had closed a second investigation against Atia for what the police deemed lack of public interest despite a video which showed him beating two cameramen on their heads.  
    Atia's conviction was the first conviction for police violence at Amona.  
    "The fact that the police investigations unit only issued five criminal indictments from Amona and closed more that 100 files for lame excuses when there are tens of civil damages suits for the same offenses is in the best case scenario a failing of the law enforcement system," Struk said.