Israel said to ask US not to indict Oct. 7 terrorists before Jewish state does

Israel said asking US not to indict Oct. 7 terrorists before it, readying law changes to make mega-trial simpler

Israel’s law enforcement apparatus has asked its American counterpart not to file indictments against Palestinian terrorists who took part in the October 7, 2023, onslaught before Israel does, which would “embarrass” the Jewish state, the Ynet news site reports.

The US is said to be leading and nearing the completion of its own probe of the massacre that will enable filing charge sheets soon, which due to differences in the legal systems is far simpler in the US than in Israel.

The unsourced report also says prosecutors have told the Attorney General’s Office they have put together charge sheets against 22 terrorists who took part in the massacre that day in Kibbutz Nir Oz, although it adds that these will likely only be filed as part of a single mega-indictment against hundreds of suspects, in a case unprecedented in scale in Israel’s history.

Ynet says that despite this intention, no decision has been made yet as to whether the indictment will be split into several simultaneous court cases to make the judicial process easier.

The report puts at 300 the number of Palestinian detainees regarded by Israel as having taken part in the October 7 atrocities, despite previous estimates putting the number at over 1,000. It says they are not slated to be released in any future hostage deal.

They are said to include operatives who didn’t participate in the onslaught but were involved in holding hostages in Gaza, while noting that no final decision has been made on whether they are to be prosecuted as part of the same mega-indictment, or if they are eligible to be freed in a deal.

The case against the October 7 terrorists is complex and faces multiple legal difficulties. Ynet says a small team of prosecutors is working on the case, getting materials from the Israel Police’s Lahav 433 special crimes unit — which is said to have collected testimonies from 1,700 survivors of the assault and from 400 members of security forces — as well as from the Shin Bet and the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate.

The new information that reportedly led to the consolidation of evidence against the 22 Nir Oz terrorists is said to have come from the Shin Bet following the military’s advancement into new areas in Gaza, where teams find incriminating evidence.

The report also says prosecutors have drafted and asked Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to advance nine bills to alter Israel’s criminal law system in order to enable the historic mega-trial, which experts say would likely take decades under the current system.

These bills reportedly include enabling trial proceedings without the defendant’s physical presence — rather via video link — or even without their lawyer. Others bills are said to relate to the terrorists’ legal representation — the Public Defense has already said it isn’t interested in representing them — as well as to enabling victims to file written affidavits rather than be questioned in person in court, and to the extent prosecutors must hand investigation material to the defense, including when some of it is classified.