Police officers said to beat, break nose and arrest Arab prosecutor over noise complaint |
Police officers reportedly attacked, arrested and broke the nose of an Arab Israeli government prosecutor last week alongside two of his relatives after entering their Beersheba apartment over a noise complaint.
The man, who works for the Southern District Attorney’s Office, has since had surgery to mend his broken nose. He also suffered injuries to one of his eyes and both kidneys, according to the Haaretz daily, which did not name the prosecutor in question.
Police accused the lawyer and his two relatives, who both work in medicine, of assaulting officers who arrived at the apartment, but he and his coworkers rejected the police’s version of events.
The Department of Internal Police Investigations (DIPI), which probes police officers on suspicion of criminal offenses, has launched an investigation into the incident.
The three men had all moved to Beersheba from the Galilee town of Deir al-Asad. Their lawyer, Tomer Gonen, told Haaretz that they had been sitting on the balcony and listening to music last Friday, May 1, when they noticed three police officers in civilian clothes had entered the house.
According to the outlet, one of the three cops lived nearby. The officers did not present them with a warrant, and so the three asked them to leave. The officers initially complied, but later that night arrived with backup.
Once the prosecutor caught a glimpse of a large group of police officers wearing helmets and masks outside the building, he called the police. The dispatcher instructed him not to open the door, but the officers soon burst into the house and violently detained the three, according to Haaretz.
The government prosecutor described the brutal........