In a rare instance of accountability, an Israeli judge sentenced Shani Sivilya, an Israeli Border Policewoman to three months in prison for taunting and abusing a Palestinian child she’d arrested. The abuse included a mock execution in which fired her gun at the blindfolded victim and shouted “death to Arabs.”. In truth, this qualifies as torture, though in Israel when it’s a Palestinian victim it’s only called “abuse.”
A fellow officer apparently had a conscience about what she’d done and testified against her, also unusual in these cases. Sivilya also featured swaggering tough gal photos of herself on her Facebook page replete with anti-Arab racist taunts. She provided the evidence to convict herself.
The probation recommendation offered to the judge recommended she not receive any jail time, but the judge rejected it and sent her away for three months. If you consider that in most other legal systems she would’ve charged with attempted murder and received a far stiffer sentence, she got off exceedingly lightly. It should also be noted that prosecutions in such cases are exceedingly rare and usually only happen when the defendant has done something very public that the authorities find it difficult to overlook.
All that being said, we have to welcome justice in whatever guise it takes.
“…in most other legal systems she would’ve (been) charged with attempted murder and received a much stiffer sentence…” Can you point to any other legal system that with these facts would have charged her with and convicted her of “attempted murder?” (It is not enough to charge someone with a crime, they must also be convicted of it before a sentence is imposed.)
In the United States, at least, someone cannot be convicted of “attempted murder” unless the prosecution proves beyond a reasonable shadow of doubt that though the accused failed at it, they did what they did with the intention of murdering another person. It is self-evidently inconsistent, indeed contradictory to say that what took place was a “mock execution” AND it could have served as the basis for a charge of attempted murder.
In the U.S. & other western legal systems people have been charged with attempted murder for far less reason than Sivilya. There is a difference bet. charging someone & convicting them. I’d have been satisfied with just charging her w attempted murder. I have little doubt that if she thought she could’ve gotten away with it she’d have killed the boy in a heartbeat. The hatred oozing fr her Facebook messages suffices to show that.
She had a gun pressed against the boy’s temple, she cocked the trigger, she fired it. That’s attempted murder plain & simple. The fact that she didn’t have a bullet in the chamber is mere luck on the part of the victim.
‘She had a gun pressed against the boy’s temple, she cocked the trigger, she fired it. That’s attempted murder plain & simple. The fact that she didn’t have a bullet in the chamber is mere luck on the part of the victim.’
Yeah sure, or maybe, She took out the bullets and she knew it was empty and she just scared him? Nothing more, nothing less a prank.
The law doesn’t consider that a prank. The next time you’re pulled over for a traffic stop would you mind if I asked the officer to do the same to u and see if u consider it “a prank?”