Honenu is representing those who are insisting on the investigation of the death of Ahuvia Sandak, z”l, who was tragically killed in a police car chase on Tevet 6 5781/ December 21, 2020, and defending the many who are being detained while demonstrating for change in police behavior. The car Ahuvia was in with four other boys overturned when the police car collided with it from behind. Please click here for a list of posts connected to the case.
Thursday, July 28, 2022, 18:05 On Wednesday, July 27, Honenu Attorney Ariel Atari wrote a letter to Judge (Ret.) Menachem Finkelstein, the Ombudsman of the State Representatives in the Courts, on behalf of Ahuvia Sandak’s parents. In light of statements the former Deputy Head of the Police Investigation Unit (PIU), Attorney Moshe Sa’ada, made in a recent two-part interview on Hadashot 12, they are demanding a comprehensive investigation into the PIU.
The letter, summarized below, opened with the investigation into the death of Ahuvia Sandak, z”l:
The investigation into the circumstances of Ahuvia’s death raised, from the first moment, questions regarding the conduct of the PIU. The main question concerns the fact that the head of the PIU allowed the policeman suspected of causing his death to coordinate testimonies. The suspects delayed writing up their police action reports about the incident for many hours. The head of the investigative team reasoned that the suspects obstructed the investigation and demanded that their testimonies be taken immediately, as they should have been, as soon as possible after Ahuvia’s death. Nonetheless, although they were summoned to and reported for interrogation at the PIU headquarters on the evening after the tragic incident (the same day), the head of the PIU determined that there was no need to interrogate them and sent them home to coordinate testimonies.
Nonetheless, although they were summoned to and reported for interrogation at the PIU headquarters on the evening after the tragic incident (the same day), the head of the PIU determined that there was no need to interrogate them and sent them home to coordinate testimonies.
This conduct appeared outrageous and improper at the time. However, we did not have an insider’s view of how the events unfolded. However, over the past two days, Amit Segal interviewed Attorney Moshe Sa’ada, who served as Deputy Head of the PIU at the relevant time, on Hadashot 12. According to Sa’ada, who was “in the eye of the storm,” on the evening after the tragic incident, at which time the investigation should have been launched, questions about the conduct of the head of the PIU were already expressed.
Moreover, the Deputy Head of the PIU exposed all of Israel to a series of serious acts that occurred in the Justice Ministry, indicating that, on the face of it, ethical and criminal offenses were committed with regard to various incidents over a period of years. The statements by the Deputy Head of the PIU caused an uproar, and that is a good thing. A country that is apathetic to such acts is not worthy of being called a state of law. However, beyond the immediate reactions, it seems that nobody intends to investigate the serious acts that Sa’ada described in the two-part interview that he granted.
These things should cause my client, as citizens to lose sleep, and all the more so as the parents of the boy whose death is being investigated by investigators designated by the Justice Ministry. In light of the above, we ask His Honor to investigate the claims of the former Deputy Head of the PIU, as they were expressed in the interview that he granted, about all of the incidents that he described, and to bring to justice everyone who is responsible for the serious conduct that he described.