Demand comes a month after Baruch Peretz and Assaf Yakutiel were charged for negligent homicide after they threw Omar Abu Jariban out of a police vehicle, leaving him to die of dehydration.
Assaf Yakutieli, one of the two officers suspected of negligent homicide of a Palestinian man, in a Jerusalem court.
The state demanded two policemen serve active prison sentences after they were convicted of negligent homicide after they dumped an injured Palestinian man on the side of the road, leaving him to die.
The decision comes a month after Judge Haim Liran rejected the testimony by Inspector Baruch Peretz, who was the officer on duty at the Rehovot police station on June 12, 2008, when he ordered a low-ranking policeman, Assaf Yakutieli, to throw Omar Abu Jariban out of a police vehicle, on the side of the road. Abu Jariban died of dehydration some time later.
On Tuesday, State Representative Batia Kolitz told the Jerusalem Magistrate Court the court that the officers “were so dense that they did not see the human that stood in front of them.”
“There is no room in Israeli society for an attitude that says ‘it will be okay, he’ll find a ride by standing on the side of the rode.’ The officers harmed the image of the police and of the uniform,” Kolitz said.
Kolitz wrapped up her statements by saying that a fitting punishment should include prison sentences.
Peretz asked the judge not to sentence him to prison, saying that since the incident his life “has been in ruins.”
“I feel hurt and betrayed,” Peretz said. “There have been times in the past when I have admitted I was wrong or I failed. In this case I did neither. I believed that justice would prove that.”
Yakutieli expressed regret over the incident. “I honestly was trying to fix a situation which was out of our hands. The result was tragic, and I am sorry. This is something I think about every day, and I am ashamed of what happened.”
Prior to the incident, Jariban was seriously injured in a car accident on May 28, 2008, while driving a stolen car on Route 6, near the Soreq interchange. He had been in Israel illegally. He was hospitalized at the Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer where he remained for two weeks before he was released into the custody of Rehovot police officers. He still required medical care and rehabilitation, and was apparently in a state of confusion.
Police, who did not know the identity of the patient-suspect, ultimately decided to admit him to the Israel Prison Service's medical facility. But it turned out there was no room for him there. So officers from the Rehovot station, which had assumed responsibility for investigating the accident and the car theft, drove Jariban to the West Bank. They eventually left him, late at night, at the side of road 45 near the Ofer military base. His body was discovered two days later.
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