Last update - 00:00 08/10/2007
Court orders Border Police to pay NIS 30,000 to right-wing activists
By Roni Singer-Heruti, Haaretz Correspondent
The Jerusalem Magistrate's Court on Monday ordered Border Police to pay NIS 30 thousand to three of the daughters of extreme right-wing activists Baruch Marzel and Noam Federman. The three sued the Border Police after they were assaulted by Border Policemen who arrested them during a demonstration against the evacuation of the Gush Katif settlements.
Yiska Federman, Sapir Federman and Rachel Marzel were arrested in July 2005 for blocking a road at the entrance to Jerusalem during an anti-disengagement rally.
According to lawsuit they filed, a Border Police officer beat them, threatened them, pulled their hair and twisted their arms after they were placed in a police car. The lawsuit also details how another Border Policeman sapir's head against a wall, and how Marzel was deprived of food and water for several hours, and handcuffed in an illegal manner. The three claim that they were subjected to "pain and suffering, as well as emotional damage resulting from the humiliation and the threats."
The two suspects denied the allegations against them throughout the trial, but the judge convicted them, noting that he found their account of the events unreliable "because of the many contradictions between the two versions, and other questions that arose from their testimony."
Following the verdict, Baruch Marzel said that "after the expulsion from Gush Katif, when we saw that all the rules were breached and that we were abandoned by all the systems, we decided that we will hunt every criminal policeman, and do everything to make sure that they answer to the law. I am currently involved in nine similar cases."