The IDF prosecution has asked the military court to extend until Tuesday the detentions of five IDF Sde Teiman prison guards suspected of sodomy against a Palestinian detainee-suspected terrorist.
At the same time, the IDF prosecution has said that it will not oppose starting a social worker evaluation process of the prison guards for the possibility of releasing them to house arrest or some other situation short of full detention.
The fact that the IDF Prosecution took that position suggests it is close to completing key aspects of its investigation and possibly even closer to filing indictments.
Accusations against the guards
On July 29, 10 guards were arrested for a mix of alleged sodomy and beatings. Two were quickly released and three more were released some days later after their detention was initially extended by an IDF pretrial court.
Since then, the remaining five suspect prison guards’ detention has been extended several times.
Multiple times the IDF pretrial court and even once the IDF appeals court have ruled in favor of the prosecution and alluded to the case being much stronger than has been leaked to the public to date.
The Jerusalem Post understands that some of the evidence includes a majority of the medical reports and medical experts’ testimony as well as video footage of aspects of the alleged torture.
The defense has noted that at least one of the medical reports is ambiguous about what caused the physical harm to the Palestinian detainee’s rectum.