The State Prosecution strike is causing a major slowdown in providing legal redress for citizens – and at least one teenaged girl is stuck under house arrest. C., a 16-year-old girl living in a Jewish outpost north of Jerusalem for nationalist/ideological reasons, has been under house arrest for about a month. She was originally arrested on suspicion of having thrown rocks at Arab cars near Ramat Migron. Several days later, she was indicted on the charges, and she was released from prison – to full house arrest. Her lawyers, of the Honenu civil rights organization, filed objections in court regarding the disproportionate terms of her house arrest, but two or three sessions on the topic were postponed because of the Prosecution strike. The prosecutors are demanding better employment terms, and are working at a fraction of their full capacity. “The normal procedure is that if the prosecutor doesn’t show up twice in a row, the plaintiff is released,” Shmuel Medad, head of Honenu, told Israel National News. “Yet in this case, the judge refuses to release this 16-year-old girl or withdraw the charges against her, and she has been stuck inside her home 24 hours a day for nearly a month.” The judge in question is Jerusalem District Court Yoram Noam. He himself said, at the beginning of the case, that he does not believe that there is sufficient evidence to convict the girl. Judge Noam has taken action in favor of ostensibly worse criminals in light of the strike. He nullified the charges against an Arab terrorist, accused of setting fire to a Jewish-owned apartment in Abu Tor, Jerusalem; uprooting trees there; burning a mezuzah; and throwing rocks on Border Guard policemen who pursued him. In yet another strike-related decision, Judge Noam ordered the release of two Arab youths from Taibe, one of whom drove the other in a car while under the influence of drugs, ran away from police, hit a police car and injured three policemen. Several other suspects, drug-dealers and the like have also been released in recent days, because of the strike. C., however, remains under house arrest. Eliezer Goldberg, a former Supreme Court judge, now heads the Justice Ministry Committee for Complaints Against Judges. His office can be faxed at 02-6595516 or, from abroad, (+972)2-6595516.
New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal gave a press conference Thursday on the shooting at the JC kosher supermarket in Jersey City. Attorney General Grewal stated that police had recovered five firearms belonging to the two shooters, including four inside the JC kosher supermarket and one inside the U-haul the suspects drove. The weapons included an AR-15 rifle, a Mossburg 12-gauge shotgun, a nine millimeter ruger, and a nine-millimeter Glock 17, Inside the U-haul authorities found a 22-caliber ruger mark four with a homemade silencer. He said that the three civilians who were killed inside the store were likely shot within minutes of the suspects entering the store. Grewel further stated that the autopsies of the two Jewish victims were carried out quickly so that they could be buried as soon as possible in accordance with Jewish religious tradition and that a rabbi was present for the examinations. He stated that authorities had not made a final determination on the motivation for the "Based on what we have collected so far, including based on recent witness interviews, we believe that the suspects held views that reflect hatred of the Jewish people as well as hatred of law enforcement. "We are still working to determine how they selected their particular for these attacks, specifically both the JC kosher supermarket and Detective Joseph Seals. "There has been considerable reporting that these two suspects are linked to the Black Hebrew Israelite movement. We have evidence that both suspects expressed interest in this group, but we have not definitively established any formal links to that organization or to any other group. Based on the available evidence. we believe that the two shooters were acting on their own. But we will continue to pursue all leads. "The evidence points towards acts of hate. I can confirm that we're investigating this matter as potential acts of domestic terrorism, fueled both by anti-Semitism, and anti-law enforcement beliefs."