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"I am a victim": the version of the police officer who is accused of attacking a civil rights activist about 5 years ago - voila! news

2023-02-28T01:15:56.977Z


Police officer Lior Hatem finished his testimony in the cross-examination, as part of the trial that has been going on for years for a demonstration in the lower city of Haifa in May 2018 that ended in violence. "You can't hurt the entire police, so you hurt a small screw," accused the complainant, Jaafar Farah, "he decided to hurt the policeman who hurt 'His Highness'"


The hearing began in the case of Lior Hatam, the police officer who attacked the civil rights activist, Jaafar Farah.

During the discussion, Farah said that "the culture of lying at the Haifa station is shameful" (Photo: Shlomi Gabai, editing: Tal Reznik)

The police officer Lior Hatam, who is accused of attacking the Arab civil rights activist Jaafar Farah, was cross-examined last night (Monday) on the witness stand, thus completing his testimony, which spanned two hearings.

Almost five years have passed since the demonstration in the lower city of Haifa in May 2018, which ended with great violence in the street and at the police station.



Lior Hatam had an orderly version, which he handed over calmly.

He did not argue, he waited for the prosecutor of the police investigation department, attorney Nathalie Hagai, to finish winding her way through her long and very complicated questions, and only then did he answer. The defense attorneys came back and shouted objections to almost every question of the prosecutor, but Hatam himself did not show anger or frustration. He usually referred to himself in the third person. Jaafar Farah, the director of the Musawa Center, listened attentively from the audience benches with attorney Albir Nahas, Musawa's legal advisor, accompanying him in the proceedings.



Lior returned and claimed in his cross-examination that "Lior Hatam is a scapegoat", while addressing himself in the third person.

"Lior Hatam is a victim of Jaafar Farah. Lior Hatam does not interest Jaafar Farah on a personal level. What interests Jaafar Farah is the Israel Police. He has something against the Israel Police, apparently he has something with the station commander, but It is impossible to harm the entire Israel Police, so you are harming a small screw," he claimed.

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Policeman Lior signed.

"scapegoat" (photo: official website, -)

The suspicious policeman continued, "I'm not an interesting character. I'm seen as a policeman. Why would we treat me? I didn't even know who he was, so maybe he was angry," he said.

"Perhaps it would have been right to ask Jaafar Farah why he made the accusation about me, perhaps he was angry? Perhaps because I treated him as the last of the detainees and not as the respect he receives everywhere? Perhaps because he was separated? Because he was taken for a strip search?", he continued, " I didn't know who Jaafar was, I didn't know that he was a leader here and there and led demonstrations and led people after him, he was like the last of the detainees, maybe it hurt his dignity, maybe he decided to hurt the policeman who hurt his supreme dignity."

His father, himself a former policeman, called him "well done" from the stands.



Lior continued to call himself a "victim".

"Policeman Yossi or policeman Moshe could have sat here, but it would have been easy to fall on me," he claimed.

"I was the only one who identified myself. I was without a name tag, on half of my second-grade clothes, and the only one who identified myself to the detainees. The only one who did his job and fulfilled his duty as expected. Then an order was given in the room to attack some police figure, and I am that figure. In the recordings from the room, you hear One of the detainees, Yoram, says, 'Say it's Lior,' 'Tell Lior Hatem.' ".

"All lies."

Jaafar Farah (Photo: Shlomi Gabai)

The prosecutor wanted to know why Azek handcuffed Farah's hands behind his back, and why he strip-searched him. Judge Shlomo Banjo also pressed on this point, "Come on, you had such a sophist... handcuffs from behind... whispering to you then You're searching abstractly... to humiliate him a little." But Lior Hatem repeated his version time and time again, according to which Jaafar Farah whispered to him during the search, "What you're looking for, you won't find on me," which made him suspect that he was hiding a phone in his underwear, and therefore a strip search was required. "This is what is expected of me," said Hatem on the witness stand, "if I had not raised such a suspicion to the officer and then it was discovered, I would be sitting here on something else."



Regarding the handcuffing of the detainees in general and the handcuffing behind the back in particular, Hatam said that it was a matter of discretion.

The formula is usually two police officers per detainee, while there in a room that was increasingly filled with protest detainees from the area, there were already 21 detainees and only four police officers.

"The State of Israel gave the policeman powers," he explained, "they gave me authority. I have the authority as a policeman to exercise discretion and perform my duty. I explain my discretion to the court. My discretion is the ratio between the large number of detainees and the number of police officers. If I were Uzek, I would have the ability to create a bigger commotion there and even more violence."



Jafar Farah's claims, which were elaborated into charges for the attack on the civil rights activist, were sealed by a total denial.

"There is no truth here," he said of Farah's version, "there was a man standing here who didn't know how he got hit and none of the arrested witnesses knew how to give half of his version. I don't know about a kick at all. There was no hit. I didn't understand how he got hit, I was here and every witness said something else. Jaafar Farah was here and didn't know which side he hit."

The policeman concluded, "I very much stick to my version."

Jaafar Farah, for his part, claimed that "it's all lies".

Last night, Judge Shlomo Banjo scheduled evidentiary hearings for the hearing of witnesses until December, as part of the trial of the incident which is far from over.

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  • Haifa

Source: walla

All news articles on 2023-02-28

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