Public Security Minister Avi Dichter hinted Thursday that Tel Aviv District Police Commander David Tzur may be censured over the escape of convicted serial rapist Benny Sela from police custody two weeks ago.

The committee investigating submitted a list Thursday naming 13 police officers and prison guards whom it believes should be investigated further in the affair.

The list, which was submitted both to the Israel Police and the Prison Service, includes Major General Tzur.

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In a press conference convened Thursday afternoon in Tel Aviv, Amos Yaron, who heads the committee, said Tzur can certainly continue serving as district commander despite the recommendations.

When asked what steps would be taken against Tzur, Dichter hinted that Tzur could be censured.

The police and the Prison Service will decide on their own whether to take action against specific individuals, due to a Public Security Ministry legal document which determined that, should the committee decide how to take action against individual officers, those officers would be entitled to see investigation material as well as receive a hearing in the matter.

Since such a process would be expected to take several more weeks, the Public Security Ministry preferred to have the committee's conclusions submitted as quickly as possible and concentrate on broader recommendations, leaving decisions regarding specific personnel to Police Commissioner Moshe Karadi.

A week ago Karadi told Haaretz that he is convinced that the policemen who escorted Sela "strayed from regulations when they decided to put him into the vehicle," despite the fact that the order was to deliver a different prisoner, are the central culprits in Sela's escape.

Karadi added that "because the members of the prisoner escort unit didn't know that that the man they were escorting was Benny Sela, they weren't properly briefed about how to handle such a man. They also weren't adequately equipped, and lacked manpower."

The Committee's recommendations aren't new ones. The central recommendation is to transfer the responsibility for all the detention centers, including the escorting of prisoners, from the Police to the Prison Service in 2007. This decision was made several months ago when Dichter took office, and the schedule for its implementation has been drwn up.

The committee also recommended reducing the need to escort inmates to court hearings, by implementing a system of holding court hearings via video conference. Yaron noted that such methods are commonplace in developed nations such as Britain and Canada, and that a proposal to instate such a system passed the preliminary legislative stage, and should be expedited.

An additional recommendation is to consider building courts and prisons alongside each other.

The committee also found that "there was no conspiracy" behind Sela's escape, and that he received no help from within the system.

Yaron named a series of security shortcoming that were observed by the committee: In violation of regulations, only two policemen were charged with escorting Sela along with another inmate; there weren't enough handcuffs to constrain both inmates; Sela was permitted to take personal belongings, in violation of regulations; on the way to the courthouse both policemen sat in the front of the vehicle, against regulations.

The committee found that policemen that escorted Sela were in violation of regulations, and that their direct commanders also bare responsibility for this.

In addition, the committee identified several security failures intrinsic to the structure of the Tel Aviv District Court, which enable a handcuffed person to escape in a matter of seconds.