Police lose evidence in 'racist' professor probe

The State Prosecutor's Office occasionally has to close investigative cases due to lack of evidence, lack of public interest or other legal reasons. But in the case of a University of Haifa lecturer who was suspected of racism, the case was closed because the police lost the investigative material.

In January 2005, attorney Ala Khaider submitted a complaint to the attorney general against Dr. David Bukay, a lecturer in political science at the University of Haifa, on behalf of the Center Against Racism and Defamation.

The complaint quoted Dr. Bukay as telling his students, "The Arabs are after money, sex and alcohol. They cannot be trusted, they are stupid and they have contributed nothing to humanity."

And also, "All the Arabs have to be rounded up, a pistol held to their head and then shot. A building in which Arabs and Palestinians live must be destroyed."

Following the submission of the complaint by student Fadi Abu Yunis, an investigation was launched against Dr. Bukay.

However, the results of the investigation were not made known either to the state prosecution or to the Center Against Racism.

Then, a few days ago, Khaider was surprised to receive a letter from the deputy state attorney, Shai Nitzan, in reply to a message he sent last June, stating that the investigative files in the case against the lecturer had been lost by the Haifa police.

"This is an unfortunate slip-up and we regret it. In any event, given this state of affairs, it is very difficult to reconstruct the investigative material that was collected in the files, and now, with years having passed, there is no choice but to close the case," Nitzan wrote.

He added that an examining officer had taken statements from those involved and found that the files were lost in the course of their transfer between the original investigator and her replacement. The examining officer reached the conclusion that it would be impossible to locate the files.

The police also expressed regret and confirmed that an examining officer had looked into the matter. This had led to a review of the guidelines for transferring files between police stations and investigators in the Northern District.

Bachar Ouda, the director of the Center Against Racism, which recently ceased its operations, said this week that he doubted the files had been lost. In an interview to A-Shams, a Nazareth radio station, he called on Arab MKs to demand an independent investigation of the police and the state prosecution in this case.

"It's interesting that only material like this gets lost, while in other cases involving public figures the decision to place them on trial is made within two weeks," he said.

The University of Haifa vehemently denied that Dr. Bukay had made the remarks attributed to him. An examination by the university found that the remarks were not made as quoted and that parts of sentences and words uttered in different contexts were yoked together in a manipulative manner.