Escaped Palestinian terrorist Jamil Ismail Baz was recaptured without resistance Friday, but his four days at large have tarnished the reputation of Israel’s national police and left a trail of ruined careers.
Police Inspector-General Ya’acov Terner announced that he was dismissing the two police officers assigned to guard the convict when he escaped from a prison van May 11.
Terner said he would also relieve several senior police officers of their posts for failing to enforce strict observance of standing orders regarding prisoner security inside detention facilities and in transit.
The major shakeup conforms to the recommendations of a police commission of inquiry set up to investigate how a maximum-security prisoner, shackled with leg irons, managed to free himself and escape from a prison van transporting him back to Lachish Prison from a court hearing last Monday.
Baz, 34, a resident of the Gaza Strip, is serving a life sentence plus 16 years for fatally stabbing Israel Defense Force soldier Nadav Deri and wounding three other soldiers at a bus stop outside Tel Aviv in July.
Terner said he would demote Chief Inspector Morris Cohen, the commanding officer of Lachish Prison, where Baz is incarcerate. Terner described Cohen as an inexperienced junior officer elevated two months ago to a position of responsibility that was apparently beyond his ability. He will not be allowed to command a detention facility in the future.
Terner seemed to lay equal blame on senior police officers in Cohen’s district for apparently letting him muddle through unaided. They will be disciplined by Terner and removed from their posts.
Most of the officers involved have engaged legal counsel and may charge unfair treatment by the police high command.
The apprehension of Baz the morning of May 15 was a distinct anticlimax to the massive manhunt that employed hundreds of police, border police, troops, and the IDF anti-terrorist squad, backed up by helicopters and civilian volunteers, which began as soon as his escape was reported.
He was discovered starving and dejected, sitting on a culvert on the Ashkelon-Gaza high-way. He offered no resistance when approached by police Sgt. Hammed Hajarart of Bir El Maksur, who is assigned to the Gaza precinct, and Eliezer Lugassi, a civil guard volunteer from Dugit.
They had been driving north in Lugassi’s car when they spotted Baz, who may very well have been hoping to be captured.
He told questioners that his escape from the prison van was not premeditated. One of the two guards assigned to watch him was driving the van. The other, whom regulations required to be with the prisoner at all times, joined his companion to ride in the comfort of the cab, leaving the chained prisoner on his own.
Baz said he picked the lock of his leg irons with a piece of wire he found and picked the lock of the rear door of the van, from which he made his escape.
He was not discovered missing until the van stopped for water and the two guards found the door open and their prisoner gone. They could not even say when or where on the road the escape occurred.
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