Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Mordechai will not be court-martialed, as Israel’s Attorney General had recommended, for causing grievious bodily harm and for conduct unbefitting an officer for his involvement in the deaths of two terrorists who hijacked a bus last April, the Army announced today. Instead, it said Mordechai will be brought before a disciplinary court.
Attorney General Yitzhak Zamir recommended that Mordechai be court-martialed and, in adopting the recommendations of the military commission of inquiry into the bus hijacking, decided that Mordechai, chief infantry and paratroop officer, not be charged with homicide in the terrorists deaths. The commission found after its one-year investigation that Mordechai was not responsible for the deaths of the terrorists.
Zamir also agreed with the commission’s recommendations that five members of the Shin Bet’ internal security force be brought before a disciplinary court on a charge of conduct unworthy of their position. Three policemen are also to be tried for unnecessary use of force.
BACKGROUND OF THE CASE
Last April 12, four Palestinians hijacked a Tel Aviv-to-Ashdod Egged bus near Ashkelon, taking the passengers hostage and demanding the release of Arabs held in Israeli prisons. Security forces stopped the bus in the Gaza Strip at the town of Deir El Balah.
The bus was stormed by Israeli security forces. Two of the hijackers were killed aboard the vehicle, and one woman, an Israel Defense Force soldier who was a passenger on the bus, was killed in the rescue operation.
Reporters later saw Mordechai leading the other two hijackers away from the scene. One paper, Koteret Rashit, violated censorship regulations by printing pictures of this action. The IDF and then-Defense Minister Moshe Arens, who was at the scene at the time, announced that all four terrorists had been killed in the rescue operation.
When pictures and eyewitnesses proved that two terrorists were alive when led away to a nearby interrogation tent, a public demand arose for an investigation.
THREE COMMISSIONS INVESTIGATED THE INCIDENT
Three commissions investigated the incident. The first established that the two men had been alive when taken off the bus. The second prepared a file for the Attorney General and the final commission was a legal body appointed by the Attorney General to examine the entire affair and report to him, which was completed last week. Israel Radio reported the commission’s findings last week.
The military commission of inquiry found that the death of the two terrorists was caused by blows inflicted on them as the troops stormed the bus. According to the commission, when the two were taken off the bus, still conscious, Mordechai wanted to find out whether they had set a time bomb on the bus, and if so, where it was to be found.
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