Attorney Itamar Ben-Gvir criticized investigators in the nationalist crime department of the police on Tuesday night, after they arrested his client for taking part in a wedding in which Jewish extremists appeared to celebrate the deadly Duma arson while waving weapons.
A total of five people, including the groom, were arrested on Tuesday, after video from the event was leaked to the press and caused a public outcry. In the video, people are seen dancing while waving guns and knives, and one masked person is seen with a mock molotov cocktail and a picture of the Arab baby killed in the Duma attack. At one point, the masked individual can be seen stabbing the picture.
Ben-Gvir emphasized that in investigation his client, Daniel Piner, said that the weapon he was filmed waving in the air was a toy gun, and not a real assault rifle.
The lawyer submitted a petition to the court following Piner’s arrest, asking not to have him left in detention over night, but the judge decided to deny the petition and leave him in jail until a hearing Wednesday on an extension of his arrest.
The judge also rejected a similar petition submitted by the lawyer of another youth arrested after being filmed at the wedding.
Ben-Gvir said he is considering submitting a petition to the District Court over the Magistrate’s Court decision.
“We haven’t heard or seen the police arrest people from the Arab sector who celebrate by waving weapons, and sometimes even using them,” he said, in reference to Arab weddings that frequently include live gunfire in the air.
“The judge…was influenced by the media pressure in this case, and that’s too bad,” said Ben-Gvir.
The only “crimes” Piner is being held on is waving the alleged toy gun in the air, and wearing a shirt of the Kach movement, which was founded by the late MK Rabbi Meir Kahane. The movement was banned in the late 1980s by a vague law that accused it of “racism,” without defining what constitutes racism.
“There’s no reason to arrest him for a full night for these ‘offenses,’” said Ben-Gvir.
He added that the person who held a picture of the Arab baby victim at the wedding “acted in the most stupid manner, and caused great damage to the campaign of the detainees,” referencing the Jewish suspects being interrogated over the lethal Duma arson who reported they have undergone brutal torture.
Regarding the wedding, Tzfat (Safed) Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu on Sunday claimed that the Israeli Security Agency (ISA) “cooked up” the incident to cover up public outcry over the allegations of torture.
Rabbi Eliyahu noted on past cases of reported entrapment by the ISA, and emphasized that the one person present at the wedding who held up the picture of the Arab baby has yet to be identified, arguing he may have been planted there to negatively portray the “Hilltop Youth.”
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