Soldiers Cleared in Killing, Guilty of Mistreating Man

A military judge today acquitted four soldiers of manslaughter in the death of a Palestinian man they beat with a broomstick and rifle butts but found them guilty of mistreating the detainee.

Col. Emanuel Gross said the four, members of the elite Givati Brigade, should have refused orders by their superiors to punish detainees with beatings. He said they went further than those instructions allowed.

The case was seen as a test of the army’s willingness to discipline soldiers accused of brutality in the Palestinian uprising.

Maltreatment is a misdemeanor punishable by up to three years in prison. Sentencing was set for June 15.

The soldiers, none older than 21, were accused of beating to death 42-year-old Hani el-Shami on Aug. 22 while conducting an arrest in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the occupied Gaza Strip.

Gross found that they inflicted blows “indiscriminately” for about 15 minutes, hitting the man all over his body with rifle butts and a broomstick. One soldier jumped from a bed onto el-Shami’s stomach, he said.

But he said the cause of el-Shami’s death was not that beating but a second beating administered by unknown soldiers at a military base.

The judge said the investigation was so poorly conducted that it was doubtful the soldiers who actually administered the fatal beating could be identified.

Had the defendants--Pvts. Yitzhak Kibbudi, Aryeh Luchato and Ron Hakhel and 1st Sgt. Yitzhak Adler--been convicted of manslaughter, they could have received up to 20 years in prison.

The soldiers were among 67 officers and soldiers charged with crimes ranging from assault and battery to manslaughter since the start of the 17-month-old Palestinian uprising.

Excluding the Givati soldiers, 36 of the troops have been found guilty and received a maximum punishment of 21 months in jail. Three others were acquitted. Cases of the others are still in progress.