Police Failures Delay Trial in Minor Assault Case, Accused Benefits from Negligence
A series of serious police failures have stalled the legal process against a suspect accused of assaulting a minor, with the case initiated in 2022 still not reaching court. This was revealed in summaries of recent complaints reviewed by the State Prosecutors' Public Complaints Commissioner, retired Judge Menachem Finkelstein, who described the handling as "gross negligence" and noted that the accused has effectively "benefited" from the prosecution's errors.
The case began about four years ago when a father filed a complaint on behalf of his assaulted minor son. Despite the police filing charges, the accused managed to leave Israel and failed to appear at scheduled hearings. Further investigation uncovered multiple prosecutorial failures, including the deletion of the indictment due to the suspect being unlocated, a direct result of prosecutorial oversight. When the suspect returned to Israel, the case was not resumed for over a year due to what was described as a "mistake." As a result, the trial has yet to commence and its conclusion remains uncertain.
Judge Finkelstein emphasized that these failures could have significant negative impacts on the minor victim, his family, and the overall ability to conduct the legal proceedings. He concluded that the accused has "come out ahead" because the criminal process against him has not even started.
In separate findings, Finkelstein addressed other complaints: one involving a former intern who improperly removed sensitive materials from the Jerusalem District Prosecutor's Office and transferred them to a colleague at a new job using a portable storage device containing criminal case files. Another justified complaint involved a municipal prosecutor who canceled a fine and replaced it with a warning for a business owned by a relative, violating conflict of interest rules. Finkelstein ruled that the prosecutor should have recused herself and referred the matter to another prosecutor, as per departmental guidelines.
