Israel Matzav

Will the Halamish brothers be sent to jail for preventing a terror attack?

In her column in last Friday's JPost, Caroline Glick told the sorry tale of the Halamish brothers, who are about to be sent to jail for preventing a terror attack.

On April 10 two brothers are scheduled to begin serving prison sentences for a crime they never committed. Yitzhak and Daniel Halamish were convicted of aggravated assault and were sentenced respectively, to seven and eight months in jail.

The two men, who live in Ma'aleh Rehavam south of Bethlehem, were arrested on February 22, 2004. The day before their arrest, the brothers were serving as IDF-trained and armed security guards in their community. They were called by Baruch Feldbaum, the head of security at the neighboring Sde Bar community, to assist him in dispersing an illegal gathering of Beduin in land adjacent to Sde Bar.

Feldbaum's concern over the gathering was heightened because Beduin shepherds are suspected of having carried out a number of unsolved terrorist murders in the area. These include the murder by stoning of 14-year-olds Kobi Mandell and Yosef Ish-Ran on May 8, 2001. Feldbaum feared that the Beduin were conducting surveillance of the community ahead of a future attack.

Armed with their IDF-issued M-16 rifles, augmented in Yitzhak's case by a handgun, the Halamish brothers rushed to the scene. Once they arrived the two were surrounded by some 20 rock and club-wielding Beduin. In an attempt to disperse the hostile crowd, and enable the Halamish brothers to escape unharmed, Feldbaum shot a warning shot into the ground. Yitzhak Halamish similarly shot a warning shot in the air with his handgun. The two brothers then pushed their way out of the crowd.

Later in the day, the Beduin filed a complaint with the police against the three guards. They alleged that Feldbaum and the Halamish brothers all shot at them with their rifles and beat them with their fists.

The issue of who was telling the truth was not a purely subjective question of whom to believe. When the police arrested the Halamish brothers, they also seized their rifles. The Halamish brothers had both denied ever shooting their rifles at the scene. Had the police wished to objectively weigh the credibility of the two sides, they could have conducted ballistic tests of the rifles to determine whether or not they had been used. But they did no such thing. Rather, they indicted Feldbaum and the Halamish brothers for aggravated assault and sent them to trial.

Feldbaum was found guilty based on his admission that he shot his rifle. He was sentenced to nine months in prison. His sentence was later reduced to six months community service by then president Moshe Katsav.

Given their denials of ever shooting their rifles, the Halamish brothers were convicted based on the Magistrate Court judge's decision to believe the Beduins' accusations and reject their defense. In his ruling, Judge Amnon Cohen did not take the police's decision not to conduct ballistic tests of their weapons into consideration. His convictions were upheld on appeal to the Jerusalem District Court. The Supreme Court refused to consider the case.

Attorney Yoram Sheftel, who represented the brothers on appeal, focused his arguments on the police's refusal to conduct ballistic tests of their rifles. According to Sheftel, in standard criminal cases, police refusal to examine potentially exculpatory evidence is grounds for an automatic dismissal of charges. In convicting the Halamish brothers and upholding their convictions, Sheftel argues that the courts ignored standard criminal procedures.

Today, with the courts closed to them, the Halamishs' only hope for avoiding prison is a presidential pardon.

Supporters of the Halamish brothers have launched an interesting campaign to lobby for clemency. They have asked for US citizens to call the office of Israel's military attaché at the Israeli Embassy in Washington and demand that the IDF advance their pardon requests with the Justice Ministry and Beit Hanassi. Since the Halamish brothers were effectively acting as soldiers while performing their security responsibilities, their supporters contend that the IDF is honor-bound to defend them.

But the campaign doesn't stop there. Supporters have also asked US citizens to contact their Congressmen and ask them to send inquiries about the case to the embassy. Finally, they have asked US citizens to contact the State Department and complain that the State Department's Human Rights report on Israel is silent on the government's abuse of Jewish civil rights.

The ad below appeared in all of Israel's newspapers today:

'Activists' say they intend to ensure that the Halamish brothers do not go to jail: The posters call upon the public to appear next Thursday (April 10) at 9:30 AM at the police station in Jerusalem’s Russian Compound – where the brother are required to turn themselves in to begin their prison sentences. “We shall be present and prevent this miscarriage of justice,” the announcement declares.

Organizers say they are quite serious about preventing the Halamish brothers from being jailed. Organizations participating include the Yesha Rabbis’ Council, Honenu Legal Aid organization, Women in Green, Land of Israel Loyalists, Land of Israel Youth, Homesh First, the Committee to Save the Nation and the Land, Manhigut Yehudit, Mateh Tzafon, Nahalal Forum, V’yirashtem Otah, Pidion Shvuyim and the Action Committees of Efrat, Gush Etzion, Kiryat Arba and Hevron.

For updates, activist are invited to SMS the word חלמיש to 052 999 1800.

...

According to the Mateh Tzafon activist group, President Shimon Peres has agreed to consider a special clemency request for the Halamish brothers. However, Peres's office called the brothers and told them that the clemency proceeding requires 6 months and asked whether they had filed in court for a 6-month deferral of their sentence. The brothers indeed filed the request in the Jerusalem District Court but have not yet received an answer, because "no time has been found in the court's schedule to do so," according to activists. "This is a familiar trick in other contexts -- petitions to the Supreme Court against the release of terrorists have been scheduled for after the terrorists were released, etc."

Activists are therefore asked to contact the court's administrative secretary by fax to the Jerusalem District court: 02-6292522, 02-6292521, 02-6281284 or 02-6291405 (replace zero with 011 972 from overseas). Mateh Tzfon's sample letter reads as follows:

To the secretary responsible for the schedule of Judge Jonathan Adiel,

President Peres is looking into clemency for the two security officers from Gush Etzion, Dani and Itizk Halamish, who are said to have shot in the air and toward the ground (though not at people). As is standard, these brothers have petitioned for their jail sentence to be delayed to give the President time to do so. Unfortunately, the brothers' petition has yet to be placed in the court's schedule, even though it is clearly very urgent since their jail sentence starts in a week!

I ask that you as a good-faith administrator make sure that the brothers' urgent petition is given the proper priority in the court docket so the petition is taken up at a realistic time i.e. before their jail sentence begins.


Sincerely, (name)

Faxes may be sent to Israel's Minister of Justice Daniel Friedmann at 02-6285438 and to President Shimon Peres at 02-5611033.

I'll bet that Omri Sharon will get a hearing a lot sooner.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:25 PM