Court convicts IDF officer who led troops in W. Bank rampage

Haaretz 17:22 27/01/2008

By Yuval Azoulay and Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondents

An Israel Defense Forces officer who commanded troops implicated in a West Bank rampage that led to the wrongful shooting of a Palestinian civilian last July was convicted on Sunday of a string of serious charges. Deputy Lieutenant Yaakov Gigi was convicted in the framework of a plea bargain of illegal use of a weapon, giving a false confession, overstepping authority in a manner that endangered lives and behavior unsuitable to an army officer. The plea bargain his defense attorney reached with the prosecution dropped charges of wrongful imprisonment and aggravated assault. The prosecution asked the Jaffa military court that tried Gigi to sentence him to 15 months imprisonment, demotion and a suspended sentence.

The sentence will be handed down at a later date. The incident took place in the West Bank town of Dahariya, located south of Hebron. Gigi and five of his men, belonging to the Lavi Battalion of the Kfir Infantry Brigade, commandeered a local taxi, and forcibly removed its passengers. The driver, Mohammed Issa Mahrazeh, was also removed, tied up, placed back in the cab, blindfolded and was held there for the duration of the operation. He sustained bruises. While driving through the town of Dahariya, the troops took note of a Badham Samamra, an 18-year-old civilian approaching the vehicle. According to the indictment, the officer ordered one of the soldiers to "distance" the Samamra from the car with his weapon, knowing that his gun was loaded and cocked, and that the soldier was not trained in operations such as the one they had improvised. The soldier then pointed his weapon out the window of the taxi and shot Samamra. The bullet hit the left shoulder and exited his body through the chest. He was moderately to seriously wounded by the gunshot. The soldiers then abandoned the vehicle, leaving the driver bound in the back seat. During the ensuing investigation, Gigi submitted a false account of the incident, and military sources say he ordered his soldiers to do the same.