Adalah Warns of Police Failure to Undertake its Duties After Failing to Investigate Brutal Assault of Arab Citizen in Her Home

On 15 August 2006, Adalah sent an urgent letter to the Haifa Police Force regarding the illegal conduct of the police in ignoring the violent assault of Mrs. Fatima Ali, a resident of the Wadi Nisas area of Haifa, on 26 July 2006. Adalah sent the letter after being informed by the police that they have no record of the incident, despite the presence of police officers at the scene shortly after the assault took place.

It should be noted that shortly after the attack, on 3 August 2006, Adalah wrote to the Head of the Haifa Police Force, Officer Nir Maryash, stating that the police had not taken any action to deal with the case and demanded an immediate and serious investigation into the attack. However, the reply of the police, dated 10 August 2006, made clear that the police had not opened any investigation. The reply stated that, “No report in the name of the complainant has been registered in the computer of the police.”

In the letter sent on 15 August 2006, Adalah argued that the conduct of the police constituted a grave breach of Article 59 of the Criminal Procedure Law (1982), which obliges the police to initiate an investigation after merely learning of the occurrence of a criminal incident, whether through a complaint or any other means. In the letter, Adalah Attorney Orna Kohn asked, “Is it possible that an incident of this kind, in which a woman was assaulted in her own home by masked men, who beat her all over her body with a stick and caused her grievous bodily harm, is not documented or reported by the police officers who arrived at the scene? And is it possible that the police have no information about the incident?”

Attorney Kohn emphasized that the assaulted woman and her family feel that they have to deal not only with the feeling that their personal safety is threatened, but also that this brutal attack was not dealt with seriously by the police, who did nothing to identify the perpetrators and bring them to justice, because the victims are Arab citizens and due to the tense atmosphere of the war between Israel and Hizbullah in which the assault took place.