Rioters who broke into IDF police chief’s home charged with assault, trespassing |
The Ashkelon Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday ordered 10 suspects kept in custody after they were arrested during an anti-conscription riot on Tuesday night in which participants illicitly entered a senior IDF officer’s home.
The suspects, out of the 25 initially arrested, face charges of assaulting a police officer, malicious damage to property, criminal trespass and unlawful assembly.
During the incident, demonstrators affiliated with the hardline Jerusalem Faction breached the home of the head of the IDF’s Military Police in order to protest the detention of yeshiva students who have evaded military conscription.
In his ruling, Judge Yaniv Ben Harush wrote that “the evidence presents a picture of an organized initiative to reach the home of a military police officer and intimidate him, while a large crowd entered his yard, causing damage to the yard, and sowing fear and terror among his family members.”
“These are serious acts, and while every person in a democratic country is granted the right to express his protest on a given issue in public dispute, the respondents’ behavior exceeded the limits of legitimate protest,” Ben Harush wrote.
He extended the suspects’ detention by one day, rejecting the prosecution’s request for a five-day extension.
An extremist ultra-Orthodox group numbering some 60,000 members, the Jerusalem Faction regularly demonstrates raucously against the military enlistment of yeshiva students. It operates a hotline to mobilize protesters against the arrest of draft dodgers and has been involved in paying evaders financial rewards.
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