An Israeli military court harshly criticized detectives from the police district covering the West Bank who threatened a Palestinian rape victim and treated her as a suspect, leading her to withdraw her complaint. Three years later, her assailant raped another woman. In September, he was convicted of both rapes, and prosecutors have asked that he be sentenced to 25-30 years in prison. No disciplinary or other measures have been taken against the detectives.
The judges in the Judea Military Court, who watched a video of the woman’s questioning by the police, were shocked by the conduct of the detectives from the Judea and Samaria division of the Israel Police, calling it “something that should not be done.” In the verdict, Judge Lt. Col. Menachem Lieberman wrote: “We heard, and we shall not forget the screams that were directed at her by the female police officer, along with a veiled hint that if she failed to withdraw her rape complaint, the police would tell her father that she had been with a man. A second judge, Maj. Sebastian Ossovsky, wrote in Arabic: “I believe you.”
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The chain of events began in October 2012, when the woman was in a parked car with a Palestinian man near Wadi Qelt, a gorge in the Judean Desert. Three Palestinian men, including Imad Arara, arrived, assaulting and robbing the pair. After they tied up the man, Arara hit the woman, threatened to tell her parents that she had been with a man and then raped her twice. The couple went to the police station in the settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim that evening. The woman described the rapes to the detectives and led them to the scene of the crime, where the condom used by Arara was found.
The next week, the woman was summoned to the Judea and Samaria division of police headquarters, where detectives accused her of making up the rapes and threatened to tell her father that she had been in the company of a man. In their verdict, the judges quoted from statements made to the woman by Miri Tal, one of the detectives: “If you lie you’ll be arrested for giving false testimony, and your father will be told about it. … So for your own good, you should tell the truth, because if not you could get yourself in trouble. … We’re not going to tell your father, but if you lie, your father will be here too, and you’ll tell him. … If I put you in jail, your father will know, and he’ll also know why. So what’s worse?” As a result of the threats, the woman was forced to say that she had lied. The rape investigation was closed, and the woman was questioned for allegedly filing a false complaint. The verdict said that she had even tried to kill herself due to the detectives’ behavior.
About two years later Arara was arrested for carrying a knife, and his DNA was entered into the police database. Since the rape investigation had been closed, he was not tied to the rape. In 2015 Arara raped another Palestinian woman, not far from Wadi Qelt. He was arrested, and one of the detectives cross-referenced his DNA with the sample found on the condom after the 2012 rape. As a result the first rape case was reopened. The woman who had been forced to withdraw her complaint was summoned to the police station, where she identified Arara from a photograph she was shown. “I am sure a million percent,” she said regarding her assailant’s identity.
Lieberman wrote: “The fabrication that the detectives tried to put in the complainant’s mouth turned out to be a house of cards.” He added, “Had the police treated the complainant as the victim of a crime, the additional rape would presumably have been prevented.” According to the judge, anyone who saw the recording of the woman’s interrogation “will learn that she gave her statement after being subjected to severe pressure and even the use of implied threats.” He added that in light of beliefs and customs surrounding so-called family honor in the woman’s culture, the threat of telling her father that she had been in the company of a man “constitutes a threat of severe physical harm, if not murder.” Ossovsky wrote: “The situation in which a woman who complains of sexual assault finds herself being questioned on suspicion of giving false witness is inconceivable to me, and demands a review and, if warranted, restitution as well.”
Tal and two other detectives involved in the case, Benny Shukrun and Shmulik Piamenta, continued to serve in the police even after it became clear that the woman’s complaint was credible. The Justice Ministry department that examines allegations of police conduct did not investigate, and they were not even brought before a disciplinary tribunal. A source in the police said that two of the three have since left the force. Haim Nissim, who at the time was head of investigations in the Judea and Samaria District, was promoted to brigadier general, and currently heads the Unit of International Crime Investigations, part of the National Major Crime unit (Lahav 433).
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In a written response, the Israel Police said it would respond after the verdict has been rendered, as is customary. “The incident occurred about a decade ago. In recent years there has been a great change in the handling of sexual offenses, and organized and supervised protocols have been drawn up, so that all sexual offense cases in an area are under frequent review on the level of the station, the area and the district. In addition, sex offenses are handled through the Military Prosecution and in exceptional cases in dialogue with the Jerusalem District Prosecutor’s Office. The district’s detectives and the Military Prosecution receive special and professional training in handling sexual offenses.”
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