In summary, the police were negligent in not presenting the diary in question to the respondent, despite the statements of the respondent and his mother. In the present case, the duty to seize the diary and check its contents arose at the latest on July 22, 1999, when the investigators arrived at the respondent's home and searched the mother's presence. As stated, in view of the respondent's request to review his diary as early as July 18, 1999, it is possible to advance by a few days the date on which the police should have fulfilled his request. In this context, the position of the case law regarding the duty of a defendant in the trial to present the alibi claim at the response stage will be emphasized (Section 152(c) of the Criminal Procedure Law [Consolidated Version], 5742-1982), and the police's duty to investigate an alibi claim raised by a suspect (Criminal Appeal 721/80 Turgeman v. State of Israel, Piskei Din 35(2) 466 (1981); And see recently Criminal Appeal 5956/08 Al 'Uqah v. State of Israel (November 23, 2011)). This derives from the importance of seizing a suspect's personal diary, an action that does not involve special effort, as soon as possible. This may be the key to presenting an alibi, which the suspect does not possess and cannot even review because he is in custody. As determined in the case Turgeman"The purpose of the police investigation is not to find evidence of the suspect's conviction, but to find evidence to uncover the truth, whether this truth may lead to the acquittal of a suspect, or whether it may lead to his conviction."
A perusal of the diary reveals that on the day of the rape – April 18, 1999 – the words "long meeting" appear (see paragraph 86 of Justice Amit's opinion, where the photocopy of the diary is displayed). On the same page, on April 13, 1999, under the heading "Problems to Handle", the words "Father - What Happens to Pelephone Debt / Rent" appear, among other things. The District Court concluded from this that if the respondent had looked at the diary, he would probably have remembered that on the day of the rape he had indeed gone to take care of his father's rent debt. I believe that there is a great deal of logic in this. As the owner of the pension noted in his statement to the police, it was the respondent's father who would have paid the rent. The respondent's arrival was a one-time event, and this is how the owner of the pension explained why he remembered the matter with confidence. It is therefore reasonable that the respondent did not initially remember that the incident took place on the date in question. It is more likely that if the diary had been brought to him, when On the same page On the day of the rape, the matter of payment to the owner of the pension appears, his memory was refreshed – just as the memory of the owner of the pension was refreshed. A perusal of the diary reveals that on the page on which April 18, 1999 appears – the day of the rape – April 13, 1999 also appears. It is evident that in the square of this day in the calendar, four rows were filled, while on most days on the page there is no entry at all or there is a record of one or two rows. It seems that the respondent would have made an effort to learn from the leaf everything he could in order to understand what he had done that day at the relevant hours, as the only key to being released from detention and proving his innocence. It is clear that he would look at the page again and again, and exert his thought in order to extract details from it. It is true that the respondent would have looked at earlier and later pages of the diary as well. But he would certainly have focused more on the events of the week before – including April 13, 1999.