With regard to the fifth charge, the accuser's counsel argued that it occurred after the defendant's arrest and is based on the testimonies of IPS personnel and the photos of the sabotage taken by them.
Counsel for the accuser insisted that the defendant did not give a statement in his police interrogations, gave a general heresy in response to the indictment, and chose not to testify in court. According to her, the defendant was silent even in answering questions unrelated to the events about which he was warned. His silence is an aid to the prosecution's evidence in accordance with section 162(a) of the Criminal Procedure Law and joins the evidence that establishes the defendant's guilt.
- According to counsel for the accuser, the elements of the definition of "terrorist act" in the Counter-Terrorism Law are met in relation to the first charge. It was proven that the defendant acted with a nationalist and ideological motive, as indicated by Shimon's words, in light of the choice to throw Molotov cocktails at the homes of Arabs in the neighborhood of East Jerusalem, in the vicinity of the Simchat Torah attack - the shiva in October, and in the absence of the defendant's version of the motive.
Summary of the Defendant's Arguments
- Counsel for the defendant argued that the grounds required for a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt had not been proven in all the charges attributed to the defendant, due to material identification errors, and in the absence of proof of the circumstances of the offenses. Counsel for the defendant reviewed the testimonies of the witnesses who identified the defendant in the security camera footage during their police interrogations, but retracted their testimony in court. He claimed that in their testimony in court, the witnesses were unable to identify the defendant unequivocally (with the exception of Rabbi Peretz, who also identified the defendant only in the videos of Sheikh Jarrah and Bank Leumi, and even that is not with absolute certainty). He argued that the identifications in the police interrogations of witnesses had no real evidentiary value, since they did not meet the threshold of certainty required in a criminal proceeding. This is learned from the substantial gaps between the testimonies given by the police and the testimonies given in court, as well as from the existence of external biases in the identification process. These biases included the presentation of edited videos to the witnesses and their knowledge that they were being interrogated in relation to the defendant even before watching the videos, along with other flaws in their testimonies. As for Rinat, it was also claimed that the videos were shown to her during her work and not under neutral conditions, and that the documentation of her interrogation began only after she had already identified the defendant, in a suspicious manner. Therefore, counsel for the defendant argued that the weight that can be attributed to the identification given by Rinat should be underestimated. Counsel for the defendant further argued that the weight of the identification made on the basis of edited videos and not raw material should be underestimated.
As to the defendant's silence, counsel for the defendant argued that his silence could not be used as support for the identification evidence, since no sufficient evidentiary basis was laid to prove the identity of the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt, so there is no reason to rely on his silence as additional evidentiary support.
- In examining the foundations of the definition of a "terrorist act" in the Counter-Terrorism Law, counsel for the defendant argued that no nationalist or ideological motive had been proven. The accuser's arguments are based solely on Shimon's testimony in his interrogation with the police, but the transcript of his interrogation with the police indicates that only after the interrogator asked him several times whether the defendant had said he wanted to carry out an attack, and after he hesitated and denied it, did he say what the accuser is based on in her arguments. Beyond that, it was argued that the testimony of Shimon Cohen, who is an accomplice witness, requires increased caution because he testified before the end of his trial, so there is a concern that his testimony will be biased. In addition, Shimon himself testified in his interrogation that the houses on which the defendant threw the Molotov cocktails were located on a street where Jews and Arabs live together.
Counsel for the defendant also noted that no evidence was presented to indicate that the defendant knew that an Arab family lived in the house where he was throwing the Molotov cocktails. He argues that the acts committed in various locations, such as bank branches, post offices, and the court, do not support the claim that there is a focused ideological motive.