The Israel Defense Force’s reputation for maintaining humane standards in the face of extreme provocation by rioting Palestinians took a battering over the weekend.
The most severe blow came from the High Court of Justice, which, in a rare reversal of a decision by the army judge advocate general, implied that the military justice system was protecting a senior officer accused of ordering the brutal treatment of villagers in the West Bank.
Another ranking officer is about to be brought before a military court on similar charges, the army announced.
And finally, two pathologists announced that an autopsy they performed on a young Arab revealed that the deceased had received a fatal blow while under interrogation in a Gaza prison hospital.
The case of Col. Yehuda Meir, former commander of the Nablus region in the West Bank, is probably the most serious blot on the IDF’s image.
The High Court ordered that Meir be put on trial for allegedly ordering his soldiers to literally break the bones of 20 Palestinian youths seized by the IDF in Beita and Huwara villages, near Nablus, on Jan. 21, 1988, about six weeks after the intifada started.
The army judge advocate general considered it sufficient at the time to bring Meir before a disciplinary court, from which he emerged with a reprimand.
In order to ensure that he would not forfeit his full pension on retirement, the officer was sent on unpaid leave until his 40th birthday. He was also promoted.
‘DEEDS DISGUST EVERY MAN OF CULTURE’
The Israeli Civil Rights Association appealed the case to the High Court, which ordered this weekend that Col. Meir be tried by court-martial for issuing illegal orders.
The justices rejected the judge advocate general’s excuse that he did not charge the colonel with illegal orders because in the early weeks of the intifada, “orders regarding the use of force were unclear.”
“Can one talk about unclarity and vagueness when one gives an order to take people out of their homes, tie their hands and seal their mouths, beat them with bats to break their arms and legs?” asked Justice Moshe Bejski.
“Such deeds disgust every man of culture, and no vagueness or unclarity can cover them up,” he added.
Until the High Court ruled on Sunday, Meir believed he could end his military career with nothing worse than a strong reprimand on his record.
Now he faces up to 20 years in prison, if he is convicted of issuing illegal orders.
The High Court’s ruling could influence the case of another IDF colonel, whose trial on charges of mistreating Gaza Strip residents was announced Sunday.
Neither the officer’s name nor the exact charges were disclosed.
Meanwhile, the results were announced of the autopsy performed on Khaled al-Sheik Ali, 27, who died last week in the interrogation ward used by the Shin Bet internal security service in Gaza Prison.
The verdict was that he died of “unnatural causes.”
The post-mortem was performed by Dr. Yehuda Hiss, head of the government’s Institute for Forensic Medicine, and Dr. Michael Baden, director of pathology for the New York State Police Department.
Baden was invited here by the Arab human rights group Al-Haq and the Boston-based Physicians for Human Rights group. Both doctors spoke to people involved in the interrogation. All denied that force was used.
Baden said the Arab died of internal bleeding caused by a blow from a blunt instrument. He said the actual cause of death was a tear in the mesentery, a membrane that connects the intestines to the dorsal wall of the abdominal cavity.
Hiss sent his report to the police, which is expected to launch a full-scale inquiry into Ali’s death.
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