Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on January 30, 2022

The Israel Police official in charge of crime in the Arab community, Maj. Gen. Jamal Hakhrush, is expected to be dismissed from the force for allegedly leaving an active homicide scene in 2020.

Hakhrush, who is the highest-ranking Arab officer on the police force, was at the scene of the killing in his hometown of Kafr Kara in the north at an iron workshop where he had come to pay a bill. Security camera footage recently obtained by Haaretz shows him stepping over the alleged homicide victim, Ghazi Amara, on a stairwell and leaving.

His dismissal is expected either as a result of a future decision by a special committee that Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai has convened to investigate Hakhrushs conduct or through an order from Public Security Minister Omer Bar-Lev.

After Haaretz disclosed the existence of the security camera footage about a week ago, Bar-Lev asked for his immediate suspension.

Bar-Lev became even more concerned when it became apparent that Hakhrush, who is 65 and is due to retire shortly anyway, had lied in the account that he gave to the media in which he claimed to have remained at the scene and secured it. Additional camera footage showed him riding away from the scene in a car.

The chairman of the investigative panel, Maj. Gen. (ret.) Aharon Aksel, is due to submit its recommendation to the commissioner on Thursday. The committee, which in addition to Aksel consists of four police officers, would be expected to accord major weight to 24 minutes of footage from a police body camera showing Hakhrush riding away. Hakhrush has denied any wrongdoing.

The panel is also tasked with examining why the acting police commissioner at the time, Motti Cohen, did not deal with Hakhrush immediately following the incident, when he and his bureau purportedly knew what had happened. Now the police are attempting to pin the blame on Cohen, who retired from the force a year ago. According to a senior police source, Cohen had seen the footage from the homicide scene.

Aksel and Cohen are friends who served together in the Tel Aviv district at the beginning of the last decade Aksel as commander of the Ayalon region and Cohen as commander of the adjacent Yiftah region. Their friendship could be a problem under the circumstances.

Police sources say that Cohen, who has not spoken publicly about the incident since the news broke, will say that he had clarified the matter with Hakhrush and had accepted his account that he had secured the scene.

Senior officers on the force have urged Hakhrush to resign rather than incurring further embarrassment. In addition, if he is fired rather than retiring voluntarily, his pension benefits could be hurt, police sources said.

Its better for him to voluntarily end his career at 65 following substantial service rather than being remembered as the major general who stepped over [a dying man] and left the service in shame, a senior police officer told Haaretz.

Senior police officials expressed the hope that Hakhrushs retirement would end the affair and make an additional police investigation of his conduct unnecessary, but for the time being, Hakhrush has apparently been unmoved by those urging him to retire. He has insisted that he acted as expected of him and has offered theories about connections between the controversy and a settling of scores among police brass.

The implications of the affair are expected to be significant for the police. This could be the beginning of the end of the division that Hakhrush has headed devoted to combatting crime in the Arab community.

Senior officers expressed doubts about the expected effectiveness of the branch when it was established, calling it unnecessary and a waste of resources that would be better invested elsewhere. It has a budget estimated at tens of millions of shekels, mainly going to pay for personnel to beef up the intelligence network and the units in the various regions dealing on a daily basis with Arab community crime. According to these officers, the division, which has no police of its own in the field, was custom-made for Hakhrush himself.

This branch was superfluous from the first moment and now, after Hakhrush leaves, theres no need for it at all. A station commander doesnt need a whole division to tell him that theres a conflict between two clans. He knows that himself, a senior officer said.

The burgeoning crime in the Arab community has been in the headlines for quite some time. The establishment of the branch in August at a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Bar-Lev was mainly a declaration to the Arab community that the government was trying to deal seriously and consistently with the issue.

From Day One, the division has been busy, and among the steps that it has taken was an indictment against the head of the Hariri crime family. But its successes has mainly been thanks to other units where considerable resources have been invested. The division itself has primarily dealt with the collection and analysis of information about disputes in the Arab community, in an effort to intervene before additional blood is shed.

You dont need an entire division for that, a senior officer said. They should provide these research forces to the advisers to the district commanders or have them report to the intelligence and investigation division.

Hakhrushs division was also tasked with other objectives that could have been done at the regional or district levels without additional oversight. They include encouraging young Arabs to join the police force; advancing the construction of police stations in Arab towns; and analyzing the sentiments of young Arabs on social media, including the collection of information about planned protests and disturbances of the peace.

In fact, Hakhrush has not been the most significant figure in the division. He has mainly been its public face, as the highest-ranking Muslim officer on the force. The most active figure has been Commander Yigal Ezra, who is considered an authority on the Arab public and has a direct line of communications to the commissioner.

The shots fired at Hakhrushs home in September and the ensuing investigation led to the conclusion that he had been involved in internal disputes in Kafr Kana, a finding confirmed by intelligence from a number of sources. In August, shots had been fired at Hakhrushs daughters house, apparently in an effort to sent a message to her husband, who is known to the police.

Even following Hakhrushs expected departure, it isnt thought that Shabtai, the police chief, would be in a hurry to dismantle the division, the establishment of which he views as a personal achievement. Yet it is clear to everyone that the division wont survive long after Shabtai himself retires.

Hakhrushs expected departure is prompting major speculation regarding who his successor would be. The thinking is that he would probably be replaced by a Muslim or Druze officer. The name most frequently touted is the deputy commander of the northern district, Brig. Gen. Shuaa Tahuka, the highest-ranking member on the force from Israels Circassian community, which came to the country from the Caucasus region.

But his appointment could hit a snag due to his involvement in overseeing last years Lag Baomer observances at Mount Meron, where a stampede resulted in 45 deaths. So far, he has not been summoned to testify before the state commission investigating the disaster.

In addition to the Hakhrush incident, the police are facing major scrutiny over allegations of its warrantless misuse of NSO spyware against civilians not suspected of criminal wrongdoing. The string of controversies undermines public trust in the police.

It may also inflict damage within the police. A recent internal survey among 25,000 members of the force revealed that about a third of the lower-ranking officers (up to the rank of chief inspector) expressed high intensions of leaving. And the recent controversies wont help the police in their efforts, which on the whole have failed so far, to recruit a strong cadre of new officers.

For the time being, the police are being spared further potential damage due to the unexpected death of retired Supreme Court Justice Miriam Naor, who was heading the inquiry on the Mount Meron disaster. Shabtai had been due to testify this week before the commission. He was expected to attempt to evade responsibility for the disaster, claiming that the northern police district had been in charge of the event. His testimony could have sparked renewed tension among top police officials and mutual finger-pointing.

Despite the delay in his testifying, the disaster remains a cloud hanging over Shabtai, who will wrap up his first year on the job at the helm of a police force in crisis and that lacks the confidence of the public.

See original here:

The cloud over the head of the Israel Police Arab crime division could spell its end - Haaretz

Category: Israel
Tags: