An officer charged with examining the police's treatment of escaped rapist Benny Sela after his recapture has decided to transfer the matter to the Justice Ministry's Police Investigations Department, so that the latter can decide whether to open criminal investigations against any of the policemen involved.

The PID is expected to make a decision within the next few days.

Superintendent Yossi Hasson, the officer appointed to look into the issue, decided to transfer the case to the PID a mere day after his probe began, after examining pictures and video clips published in the media that, he said, aroused suspicions that Sela had been improperly treated or even abused.

	Advertisement

Sela himself has made similar accusations, and two attorneys from the Public Defender's Office who met with him Monday said that they are considering filing their own complaint with the PID.

Attorneys Michal Bachar and Eyal Hovav said that such a complaint would focus on three issues: the fact that police forced Sela to be photographed after his capture, thereby violating his right to privacy; allegations that the police beat him; and the police's alleged failure to inform the Public Defender's Office of Sela's request to meet with them.

The office has represented Sela in several previous legal proceedings, and was therefore expecting to hear from him after his recapture. But when no word came, Bachar and Hovav decided to visit him on their own initiative. Sela then told them that he had asked to see them, but the police apparently never transferred his request.

Attorney Michael Attiya, of the Israel Bar Association's prison supervision task force, also visited Sela Monday. Like Bachar and Hovav, Attiya said that he saw numerous scratches and other marks on Sela's hands and upper body.

A doctor who visited Sela on Monday confirmed this, but said that the marks did not necessarily indicate that Sela had been beaten. Rather, he said, the marks could have been made by thorns and tree branches as Sela was fleeing during the chase that led to his recapture.

The Northern District police chief decided to appoint Hasson to look into Sela's complaints after two pictures posted on the YNET Internet site Sunday night clearly showed two policemen from the Nahariya station smiling at the camera as they forcibly held Sela's head to produce a good pose.

The incident has aroused a storm within the police. Some colleagues have stridently defended policemen David Abuhatzeira and Ronen Rotmen, saying that far from mistreating Sela, they gave him food, water and a towel at his request. But other officers say that the incident reveals serious problems in the force.