The Jerusalem Magistrate's Court accepted the settlement agreement and determined that Neriah Zarog will receive compensation in the amount of 5,500 shekels from the Israel Police and the Jerusalem District Attorney's Office for a false arrest that took place about a year ago.
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The lawsuit was filed by attorney Menashe Yado of the Honenu organization, in which he claimed that due to the police's failed mechanism, the officers were not informed that the arrest warrant against him had been canceled 12 days earlier and that Zarog's arrest was a false arrest.
The incident occurred about a year ago.
According to the indictment, when Zarog returned from Jerusalem at midnight to his home in Yitzhar, and with him in the car were his wife with their two toddlers and another family member, a police checkpoint set up at the Aliya junction to the settlement took his details and immediately afterwards the policeman informed Zarog that he was under arrest and handcuffed him.
The lawsuit stated: "Neria told the policeman that his wife was with the babies in the car and he could not leave her there alone at night. Neria's wife and brother-in-law do not hold a driver's license and could not go to their home in Yitzhar on their own.".
Despite this, Zarog was loaded into the ambulance and brought to the station.
Only afterwards was Zarog informed that the reason for the arrest was a pending arrest warrant against him. Despite his explanations to the police that the arrest warrant had been canceled about two weeks earlier by a judge's decision, the police did not accept his explanations, and at the police station, Zarog was also asked to pay 1,000 shekels in order to be released.
Attorney Yado described in the lawsuit: "Neria stayed at the station until 5:30 in the morning while Neria claimed to the police that it was a mistake and that he should be released. At one point, the station commander said that someone would bring 1,000 shekels in cash and then a memorandum would be written so that Neria could be released. In light of this, an acquaintance of Neria's volunteered to bring Neria cash to the station and Neria was released. For the entire night, Neria sat handcuffed on a chair in front of the station clerk" - in violation of handcuffing procedures.
Additionally, as a result of Zarog's false arrest, his wife and brother-in-law were stuck in a car in the middle of the night at the Yitzhar intersection, unable to reach their home, and were forced to wait until a volunteer they found came down from Yitzhar to drive them home.
The lawsuit claims that the cause of action is due to the failure to transmit the information and indirectly caused a false arrest "due to the responsibility of the claims unit, whether due to the responsibility of the tracing unit, or due to the responsibility of the police officers from the area - one of the units that is supposed to transmit the information about the cancellation of the summons and the implementation of the cancellation decision failed and caused a false arrest.".
Attorney Yado emphasized that this is a pattern of conduct: "The Ministry of Justice has already filed about ten lawsuits for failing to update the cancellation of arrest warrants, and the failed mechanism continues to cause significant and completely unnecessary harm to young people. The acts and omissions alleged in this constitute wrongs of negligence, assault, false arrest, violation of a statutory provision in conjunction with Section 9A of the Arrests Law, and violation of a statutory provision in conjunction with the provisions of the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty.".
