The arrest of Professor Aryeh Levin, the gastrologist suspected of committing rape and indecent acts on his patients and the mothers of patients, was extended today (Sunday) by five days by Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court Judge Christina Hilu-Assad.
15 complaints have been filed against Levin so far.
The police representative, Inspector Oren Sasson, asked for Levin's detention to be extended by six days, noting that four other complainants testified to the police, one of whom was a 14-year-old girl at the time of the incident - and that none of them complained about rape.
He said the doctor's interrogation shed light on Levin's medical and informal relationship with his patients.
Levin claims that some of the events described against him are in fact part of a novel.
Prof. Arie Levin, Photo: From the website of Wolfson Hospital
Defense attorney Lior Epstein, on the other hand, argued that one of the complaints was about a case from 26 years ago and that the police had no medical opinion that it was not a medical procedure, claiming that he had performed the medical procedure on hundreds and even thousands of patients. The year 2015, except for a mutual case, the defense attorney requested that his client be released under house arrest under full supervision.
In her decision, the judge noted that the police are seeking completion of an investigation and the reasonable suspicion is dwindling from hearing to hearing to a disturbing picture.
"The offenses attributed to him go beyond what can be claimed as medical treatment, and some were not committed against patients but with those who accompanied them," the judge wrote in her decision.
Prof. Levin in court, Photo: Gideon Markowitz
The affair came to the attention of law enforcement officials through the Sexual Harassment Commissioner at Wolfson Hospital, where Levin serves as director of the Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition Unit, after it passed a report to the prosecution on a young woman who was sexually assaulted by the doctor about nine years ago.
At first, the young woman did not want to talk to the police, but after a conversation with the investigators she decided to tell about what she knew, thus enabling the police to reach more victims.
