The Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday handed down lighter-than-expected sentences to 2 engineers responsible for the 2012 death of a younger IDF officer when a lighting truss collapsed at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl web site throughout a rehearsal for the Independence Day ceremony slated to happen that 12 months.
Oren Warshavsky, the engineer for the location, and Yitzhak Tocker, the security marketing consultant, have been convicted of negligently inflicting the death of Lt. Hila Betzaleli, who was killed when the large steel construction fell on her and 7 different troopers. All eight sustained accidents; solely Betzaleli’s have been deadly.
Tocker was sentenced on Tuesday to 4 months’ imprisonment that he may serve in neighborhood service work exterior the prison, whereas Warshavsky was sentenced to 400 hours of neighborhood service, with the courtroom noting his fragile psychological state, in accordance with the Ynet information web site.
Betzaleli’s dad and mom responded angrily after listening to the sunshine sentences on Tuesday.
Mother Sigalit cried out within the courtroom, shouting, “I don’t believe it! Six years I’ve been silent, sitting on this stinking bench [in the courtroom]. Let me die, take me, I want to be done with this world.”
She added: “A 20-year-old girl wanted to learn medicine. Who cared about that? My Hila died for nothing. This was greed, they wanted ‘the biggest ceremony,’ but the world moves on and only my Hila pays a price. How are they not fit for prison?”
Yaron Betzaleli, Hila’s father, yelled on the defendants, “Scum, you killed our daughter!”
Before the sentencing, Yaron advised reporters that the household was “asking for and wants to see them go to prison and think about what they did. This happened because of greed. Three months ago, Mr. Tocker took a job in Ashdod, and Warshavsky is also working. ”
Friends and relations of Hila Betzaleli cry as then-IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz salutes after laying an Israeli flag on her grave, on the Mount Herzl army cemetery. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
Last month, throughout a pre-sentencing listening to, the Betzalelis argued within the courtroom that a significant sentence would save lives by sending a message that there can be a value to pay for negligence.
The investigation by police and prosecutors lasted nearly three years, after which indictments have been filed in opposition to seven folks and a firm that helped produce the ceremony — Itzuv Bama, which constructed the lighting construction.
In this 2012 picture, a police officer stands close to the scene the place a massive lighting rig collapsed and killed Lt. Hila Betzaleli. (Nati Shohat/Flash90)
The indictments famous that the folks employed to construct the construction didn't have the skilled experience required for the job, and that it was carried out with out the mandated planning and oversight by certified engineers. The outcome: firm workers slapped collectively a makeshift anchoring system that, as soon as the truss was lifted into place, collapsed nearly instantly.
Two officers from Itzuv Bama have been sentenced to six- and seven-month prison sentences in a December 2016 plea cut price.