A senior police officer was charged on Sunday with assault for attacking two people at a demonstration against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, three months after footage emerged of him shoving and hitting protesters outside the prime minister’s official residence in Jerusalem.
According to the charges, demonstrators protesting against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were marching from Jerusalem's Chords Bridge to his official residence on Balfour Street on August 22.
Midway to the residence, officers instructed protesters to halt and turn back as the march was not authorized by the city's police department.
According to the indictment, while officers were engaged with protesters, Chief Superintendent Niso Guetta attacked Avichai Michael Green, a demonstrator who had complained to him about police conduct, hitting him twice in the face with both of his hands.
Chief Superintendent Niso Guetta filmed on Aug. 22 hitting an anti-Netanyahu protester
(Video: Twitter )
While Green attempted to escape, Guetta gave chase with other officers and arrested him.
Yalon Gurewitz, a photographer covering the protest, filmed the interaction and Green's subsequent violent arrest.
As Green was taking to a patrol car and Gurewitz was filming, Guetta hit the photographer in his lower back and then in the face with a walkie-talkie, shattering his glasses and causing him serious pain in the right side of his face and ear.
Videos of the incident that surfaced lead to an investigation of Guetta by the Police Internal Investigations Department which resulted in his indictment.