What good is an occupation police force?
http://972mag.com/what-good-is-an-occupation-police-force/87222/
Last week, Yesh Din Attorneys Assnat Bartor and Noa Amrami submitted an unusual appeal. It refers to not one, but eight cases. The reason: since investigators couldn’t get the required paperwork from the Civil Administration, Judea and Samaria (West Bank) District Police (SJPD) officers decided that they didn’t feel like working and recommended the cases be closed. In each case.
The cases come from two batches of closed police investigation files. The first refers to the acts of R, a well-known individual from the settlement of Revava. The latter allowed himself to trespassing on land belonging to two Palestinians, Aaref al-Sufi and Aaisha Qassam, and carry out construction work there, including paving a road. In the first incident, which took place on March 20, 2008, the police closed the case, citing the “perpetrator unknown clause” – despite the fact that R admitted to committing the crime in his statement to the police. Another reason cited by the police for closing the case is that it asked the legal advisor to the West Bank for his opinion regarding ownership of the land in question. Since the police did not receive a reply, a decision was made to close the case.
Errr, what? Run that by me again? A case is closed when it either reaches a dead end or is sent to prosecution. If no one replied to your letter, send another one. If you still get no answer, pick up the phone. Still no answer? Lay siege to the office of the legal advisor until he has no choice but to answer. What is the meaning of this negligence?
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The second batch of cases comes from one the most infamous illegal outposts, Havat Gilad. Two of the complaints were filed after settlers in the outpost placed mobile homes on land belonging to Ibrahim Ghanem and Ghanem Abu Adida. These complaints were closed by police, once more, because they did not receive the information they asked for from the legal advisor. In this case, though, the police did work some wonders – even by the rather low standards of the SJDP.