As this is keyed, a once-accused man is walking free for lack of evidence.
According to the right-of-center Israel HaYom on-line newsletter (http://tinyurl.com/y52wn58e) A Palestinian man indicted earlier this month for raping a seven-year-old girl at her school in the Binyamin region of Judea and Samaria, a case that transfixed Israel, was released from prison on Tuesday morning and the charges against him were dropped.
After Israel Police investigators re-interviewed the victim, Military Advocate General (MAG) Maj. Gen. Sharon Afek made the decision to cancel the indictment against Nazmi Abed el-Hamid Kattousa due to a glaring lack of evidence.
According to many Israeli sources, the accused was one step away from an American-style lynch mob (http://tinyurl.com/yyytqka2) when the MAG canceled the remand.
Rape cases never are easy. It usually comes down too “He said-She said.”
When a small child — in the Israeli case, the girl was 7 years old — the crime is all the more heinous.
PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE
When I was editor of a newspaper in a small U.S. Western town (Ely, Nevada) a pre-teen girl claimed her boyfriend — then 19 or 20 years old — raped her
When the matter reached the court, the judge cleared the room and personally, gently questioned the child.
It turned out that
a. The boyfriend was innocent
b. The child had been raped as she claimed, and
c. The rapist was the child’s own grandfather.
Add the hostility between Israelis and the Muslims coming from the PLO-controlled territories and emotions quickly rise to the boiling point.
The Israel HaYom blurb ended noting "After examining the evidence in the case, the completion of the investigation and the analysis of the investigative actions that are yet to be carried out, the Military Advocate General believes that at this time there is no reasonable chance of convicting Kattousa. Therefore, the MAG decided to walk back from the indictment and allow the Israel Police to continue completing the investigation," the office of the Military Advocate General announced."
My first born is a detective on a municipal police department. He is assigned to the child abuse division and works in a unit called crimes against children and families. It handles child abuse, elderly abuse, domestics, rapes, lewd and lascivious acts etc.
He also deals with pedophilia and other sex offenders as well as have kiddy porn to cases.
The Israeli police may find enough evidence to bring this man before the bench.
Hopefully they will not stop looking for the perpetrator(s) because they have a likely suspect.
Perhaps someone like the judge in Nevada will discover the truth by gently questioning the child.
Rape cases never are easy. Rape cases involving young boys and girls are particularly difficult.
A mob throwing a rope across a tree limb is not the answer.
Not in Israel and not in the U.S.
Next Day
From A7 news (http://tinyurl.com/y4j7sgno), Despite Katusa having failed a polygraph test during the initial investigation, prior to the indictment, a major discovery at the victim’s home this week changed the prosecution’s position regarding the indictment, Israeli media outlets reported Monday night.
A question arouse shortly after the indictment was filed, however, regarding the veracity of the child’s identification of Katusa as the perpetrator.
The case lacked physical evidence, due in part to the family’s decision not to immediately report the matter to police, and investigators say the victim may have been led by her mother to identify Katusa as the perpetrator.
Despite Katusa having failed a polygraph test during the initial investigation, prior to the indictment, a major discovery at the victim’s home this week changed the prosecution’s position regarding the indictment, Israeli media outlets reported Monday night.
Meanwhile Yehuda Fried, who is representing the 7-year-old rape victim and her family, responded Tuesday to the alleged rapist's expected release.
"The possibility that the rapist will walk free frightens me," Fried told 103FM Radio. "The possibility that he will return to working in the school is horrifying. We will do everything we can to change the decision." (http://tinyurl.com/y4ggtlle)
I am not certain why the victim of a crime needs legal representation beyond the police and state prosecuters.
Fried may be trying to make a name for himself or perhaps a fat fee, but he should know that until a court rules on guilt or innocence, even in Israel, a person — from a premier to a janitor from the PLO areas — is innocent.
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
Truth is an absolute defense to state proseuteersdefamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.
