There are many political and operational issues surrounding the arrest of nine reservist soldiers serving as prison guards at the IDF’s makeshift Sde Teiman detention facility, who allegedly sodomized a Palestinian detainee there.
The central question is: Did they do it? If they did, the law – both Israeli and international – has a clear stance: The guards must be punished regardless of the strong emotions triggered by Palestinian terror instigated against Israelis, particularly in relation to some of the terrorists who participated in the October 7 massacre currently being held at Sde Teiman.
Determining the nature of punishment would depend on what the reservists are convicted of. There are all kinds of extenuating circumstances that can be explored in a trial that can lessen the severity of a crime or a sentence.
The infamous incident involving Elor Azaria in Hebron resulted in a reduced manslaughter charge. He ended up serving less than a year in prison for killing a neutralized Palestinian terrorist.
The next most important question is whether the High Court of Justice will soon force a complete closure of Sde Teiman or allow it to remain open in a reduced capacity, given that the vast majority of detainees have already been transferred to standard prison facilities.
There have been contrary reports about what the medical records say regarding the detainee at Sde Teiman. Some unequivocally support the allegations that he was sodomized, while others leave open other possibilities that could be used by the suspects to undermine a reasonable doubt conviction supplanted by the evidence.
Prosecution confident of winning
The Jerusalem Post understands that the prosecution is very confident of winning on this point and, to date, the IDF’s pretrial court has consistently ruled to extend the suspects’ detention.
Another area of ambiguity concerns responsibility: Who has responsibility for what? Originally, nine guards were arrested. One was quickly released, and three more were released some days later after their detention was initially extended by an IDF pretrial court.
It seems that those three may still face some lesser charges. Of the five still in detention, it appears as though two may have central culpability for the alleged offenses, while the others may have additional culpability, but still less than the top two. The Post has learned, however, that all five are likely to be accused, to some degree, of involvement with the sodomy attack.
Leaked reports have meanwhile shown that the two central suspects failed polygraph questions about whether they had perpetrated sodomy. This is not a good sign for them, but polygraphs are also not considered strong evidence in criminal trials. The Post has learned that this is being used by prosecutors as a helpful guide point for how to conduct the pre-indictment investigation, rather than as an expectation to win at trial.
Possibly the largest problem for all five suspects is the leaks, which suggest that the incident lasted for around 10 minutes. If this is true, it will be very difficult for them to argue that they were acting in self-defense or were temporarily confused or provoked and did not have criminal intent.
A short 45-second video leaked to the N12 news site showed the actions as carefully planned, including a seemingly premeditative intent to conceal the worst ones from video cameras in the area, though because they were concealed, the acts do not necessarily prove the sodomy charge alone.
But, combining the video evidence with medical report documentation and incriminating proof from the prison guards themselves or their commanders, the case looks strong.
Certainly, the IDF pretrial court has made increasingly definitive statements about the evidence against the main suspects.
Yet, the Sodomy case is far from the only one relating to Sde Teiman.
Weeks ago, a separate indictment was filed against a single prison guard for beating a detainee during transfer to and from interrogation rooms.
In that case, video footage of the beatings led to commanders turning the soldier in.
Furthermore, there are expected to be cases against prison guards relating to the deaths of around 27 detainees.On July 19, the Post reported that IDF Military Advocate-General (MAG) Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi would point out that some detainees were badly wounded in battle and likely died as a result of that at Sde Teiman. She hopes that she can move forward faster in cases of detainees who came to Sde Teiman fully healthy, and only later were wounded or died.
However, even with those cases, the IDF’s legal division faces a massive delay in receiving professional medical opinions on injuries and causes of death.
For example, was a death caused by strangulation, a series of blows to the body, or a heart attack?
The state’s medical forensics institute has been overwhelmed by these questions since October 7 and the depressing and unprecedented volume of work has decimated the staff size, just as the IDF legal division is growing to try to keep up with the war. When one soldier committed suicide, it took seven to eight months to get a medical opinion.
The Post clarified on Thursday that, despite the additional public attention, there has been no breakthrough to speed up the forensics institute’s process.
On Wednesday, the state reported to the High Court that only around 30 detainees remained at the facility out of around 1,400 who were being held there prior to June 5. Already then, it had told the court that 700 detainees had been transferred and that another 500 would be – within a few weeks.
Despite the progress, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) continued to push the court to order an immediate shutdown. ACRI contended that the state’s own comments on Wednesday made it clear that new detainees could still be brought in.
It added that allegations of detainees being forced to stay on their knees in crowded cages, handcuffed and blindfolded all day, and subjected to humiliating treatment, along with many cases turning into criminal probes, mean that the state should no longer be given the benefit of the doubt.
In contrast, the justices seemed to want to give it credit for transferring the vast majority of detainees and wanted to give the state time until early September, when the government explained that more remaining detainees would be transferred and the facility might be able to be closed.
The High Court did not clarify whether it would issue an order before early September.