An IDF Court granted the IDF Prosecution’s request on Thursday to extend the house arrest of five IDF Sde Teiman prison guards suspected of sodomy against a Palestinian detainee-suspected terrorist until at least September 5.
On August 13, an IDF Court ordered the release to house arrest of the five IDF Sde Teiman prison guards who have been detained since July 29.
As part of the same ruling, the court that day ordered that they all remain under house arrest until at least August 22, pending a potential social worker evaluation and IDF investigators completing their examination into the matter.
The defense failed to convince the court to completely end the house arrest but succeeded in persuading it to consider some more lenient measures sometime next week.
For example, the court said it might consider allowing the suspects to serve their “house arrest” both at home and at work, provided there would be appropriate chaperones in place at both locations to ensure they do not flee.
On Thursday, the IDF Prosecution also announced that its investigation of the five suspects may conclude as early as this weekend.
Already by the start of next week, the IDF Prosecution said it will start transferring more evidence of its case to the defense and will offer it an opportunity for a pre-indictment hearing.
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 was extended several times until August 13.
Case is stronger than has been leaked to the public
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 what 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 two of the medical reports are ambiguous about what caused the physical harm to the Palestinian detainee’s rectum.
The second of these reports by Chen Kugel, chief of the State Forensics Institute, could be potentially more damaging to the prosecution’s case.
On the flip side, Kugel said that the ambiguity came from the fact that he did not get the opportunity to see photographic evidence nor examine the detainee, whereas some of the pro-prosecution medical reports came from medical experts who did examine him.
It was unclear whether there was photographic evidence of the detainee’s rectum, but sources indicated there was no photographic evidence of his frontal private areas and that they did not know why.