Supreme Court doubles sentence of policeman who killed Arab citizen

Haifa, 21 July 2010 – In a very important decision for the Arab community in Israel, the Supreme Court doubled the sentence of an Israel Police officer convicted of shooting and killing an Arab citizen of Israel. This ruling occurs almost four years after the killing.

In July 2006, Mahmoud Ghanayem, 23, was killed by a close-range gunshot in the head by Shahar Mizrahi, an Israeli Police officer. The undercover policeman, who was part of a raid against car thieves in Pardes Hannah, claimed that Ghanayem was breaking into a vehicle, while the family claims that it was the family’s car. Police said Ghanayem attempted to flee the scene in his car and Mizrahi smashed the window of the car open with the butt of his gun and shot him in the head.

Mizrahi was then convicted of manslaughter in June 2009 and sentenced in September of the same year to 15 months in jail and to a 15 months suspension, a light punishment for the crime of manslaughter. However, he was not suspended from his duties.

During the criminal proceedings, Shahar Mizrahi received the full support of the Police Department and Minister of Internal Security. Senior ranking officers even witnessed Mizrahi’s character at the different hearings. The National Commander of the Police force rejected the Mossawa Center’s and the family’s demands to suspend Mizrahi from his duties during the trial, claiming that the Police’s regulations require that it wait for a sentence in order to take such a action into their consideration. After the Supreme Court decision today, the first reaction of Major General Shimon Cohen (head of the Police’s northern district) was: “This is a difficult day for the family and the police […] The district command and its officers will continue to accompany and support the officer’s family in the future as we are doing today.”

In the Supreme Court’s ruling that doubles Mizrahi’s jail sentence to 30 months, the judges stated that there was no immediate danger to Mizrahi’s life and that even if there had been, he could have shot the tires of the vehicle instead of shooting Mahmoud Ghanayem in the head, with the evident intention of killing. The Court insisted on the balance of personal security, with the necessary respect for human life.

The Mossawa Center welcomes this much needed and much deserved decision of the Supreme Court, especially in the context of the current Israeli government’s tolerance towards race and ethnic-based violence and the systematic incitement by government ministers and members of the Knesset against the Arab minority in Israel.* However, the Center wishes to stress that since 2000, 45 Arab citizens in Israel have been killed by Israel Police or in racist incidents and that so far, in only two cases, had the killers been convicted. Impunity in the killing of Arab citizens must be systematically addressed and the behavior of the Police Department, which refused to suspend Mizrahi from his duties even after his was convicted, must be denounced.

*For more information, please see the Mossawa Center’s latest publication ‘One year for Israel’s New Government and the Arab Minority in Israel’.