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Case of Benny Sela
ESCAPED PRISONER - CAPTURED!
"AKA: The Tel Aviv Rapist"
Tel Aviv, Israel
Eshel Prison - Beersheba, Israel
Benny Sela known as the "Tel Aviv serial rapist" was convicted in October, 2000 on 13 counts of rape. Sela tortured, beat and raped dozens of little girls and women, terrorizing an entire city for months.
Benny Sela grew up in Tel Aviv on Rehov Hanoch in a seedy neighborhood near the Hatikva market. When Sela was 13, his alcoholic father committed suicide within view of the family's apartment, jumping from an almost-four-story-high electrical pole.
Sela would ask his victims personal questions and force them to shower afterward to reduce the physical evidence. In three instances, he video taped his victims, threatening to publish the videotape on the Internet or to give them to their friends if they reported the attacks.
Sela attacked women and girls in their homes, usually late at night or early in the morning, sometimes threatening them with a knife, sometimes beating them and sometimes robbing them.
He tied some of them up with telephone wire or stuck clothes into their mouths. He attacked one woman twice, and threatened another with a knife while her two daughters slept beside her.
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Timeline
1994
Tel Aviv began to witness a series of terrifying rapes and sexual assaults.
1995
1999
While awaiting trial, Sela tried unsuccessfully to escape from detention.
Serial rapist suspect captured (12/15/1999)
2000
Benny Sela still refuses to cooperate with his defence attorneys (07/27/2000)
2001
Serial rapist Sela gets 35 years (01/01/2001)
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
Also see:
Serial rapist suspect
captured
Jerusalem Post - 19:30 Wednesday, December 15, 1999
http://www.jpost.com/com/Archive/15.Dec.1999/LatestNews/lnews-2.html
The police this evening announced the capture of a man suspected of being the serial rapist responsible for 24 rapes, attempted rapes, and sexual assaults, Israel Radio reported. He was identified as Tel Aviv resident Benny Sela, 28, a plumber and delivery truck driver. Police said Sela, who is not cooperating with investigators, was identified by DNA testing. Preliminary results of the testing indicate there is a one in a million chance that another person could have committed the crimes, the police told a press conference.
Tel Aviv serial rapist believed
caught
Jerusalem Post - Thursday, December 16, 1999
By Jerusalem Post Staff
http://www.jpost.com/com/Archive/16.Dec.1999/News/Article-1.html
TEL AVIV (December 16) - The serial rapist who terrorized Tel
Aviv and the central region of the country for some five years has apparently
been captured, police said yesterday.
Tel Aviv District police officials said that DNA from Benny Sela, 28, who was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of committing two indecent acts in the Hadar Yosef region, is believed to match that left behind by the serial rapist in other attacks.
Police said that, based on the DNA evidence, Sela is now suspected of another 24 attacks, among them nine rapes and forced sodomy.
Police said the DNA tests have an extremely high matching probability, leading to the police estimates that Sela is indeed their man.
However, they are still awaiting the results of further lab tests to provide even stronger proof linking Sela to the crimes.
Channel 2 reported that, according to police, Sela served time in prison during the five-year period, and that while he was in prison there were no attacks attributed to the serial rapist.
However, the attacks resumed once he was released.
Sela's lawyer denied he has any connection with any of the crimes attributed to the serial rapist.
Channel 2 also reported that those who know Sela said he was sexually abused himself as a child. One of the serial rapist's victims reportedly recalled her attacker said he was abused as a youngster, Channel 2 said.
By Larry Derfner
Jerusalem Post - December 24, 1999
http://www.jpost.com/Editions/1999/12/24/Features/Features.705.html
(December 24) -- The arrest of Benny Sela, the alleged Tel Aviv serial rapist, stunned his neighbors, who used to happily leave him alone with their daughters, Larry Derfner reports --
We used to hear yelling from their apartment all the time. His mother would scream at him, 'Get the hell out of here, why do you keep coming around here?'" recalled a woman neighbor of Benny Sela, 28, the suspected Tel Aviv serial rapist.
"His mother is very bossy, and she never seemed to care much about him," said the neighbor, who for some 20 years has lived near the Selas on Rehov Hanoch, one of the slummy alleys near the Hatikva market in south Tel Aviv.
Right across the alley from the Sela apartment is the almost four-story-high electricity pole from which Sela's father, an alcoholic, jumped to his death when his eldest son was just past his bar mitzva.
During his trial three years ago for sexually molesting his cousin from the time she was eight until she was 15 - for which Sela served a year-and-a-half in Ayalon Prison - he testified that his father used to beat him.
"In a sense Sela is a model of the serial rapist," said Prof. Giora Shoham, a Tel Aviv University criminologist who has studied violent criminals in Israel and abroad. "His father used to beat him, and his mother wasn't there to help him. She was emotionally absent. When a young boy asks for love and instead receives rejection and violence, then for him rejection and violence become synonymous with love."
Prof. Menahem Amir, a Hebrew University criminologist, insisted there wasn't enough public information about Sela yet to say that he matched a common profile of serial rapists. Yet when asked what typically drove such criminals, Amir replied: "They want to take revenge against women. Usually they've been rejected by their mother, or perhaps by their first love. Often their father was punitive and abusive, and their mother didn't protect them."
Police say Sela committed at least 24, and as many as 34, rapes, sexual assaults, and sexual molestations of women and girls over the past five years - mainly in Tel Aviv, and mostly in the past year-and-a-half since he was released from prison. Police say they have DNA matches between Sela and the bodily evidence found in 10 of the crimes. Such identification makes it certain beyond the most infinitesimal doubt that Sela is the serial rapist, Shoham said.
FOR many months, this rapist cast a deepening shadow of terror over women in the greater Tel Aviv area. Police, under intensifying criticism for failing to catch the assailant (see box), devoted extraordinary resources and manpower to tracking him down. On the Monday before last, Sela was arrested when, for the first known time, he attacked out in the open instead of behind closed doors.
He returned to the locale of some of his previous alleged rapes, Tel Aviv's Hadar Yosef neighborhood, and molested two teenage girls on the street in the middle of the day. They screamed for help, neighbors called police, and policemen who had been staking out the area for some time chased Sela down.
"He wanted to get caught. He was worn out. He couldn't keep it going any longer," surmised Shoham.
Police say Sela has admitted to those two final molestations, but to none of the other crimes. During his bail hearings in court he has been almost totally uncommunicative, staring at the floor.
It's already a cliche that every time a mass murderer or rapist is discovered after evading police for a long time, his neighbors are stunned. Often they describe the criminal as: "A real quiet sort of fellow. Didn't say much, except maybe 'Hi.' Kept to himself, mostly."
Sela's neighbors are definitely shocked. But they paint a portrait of a friendly guy next door.
"The man they're talking about - this is not the Benny I know. Deep down, I still can't believe that he did it. It's like you know a person, and then you discover that he's really the devil," said a neighbor, who didn't want her name used.
The man who runs the grocery store next door to the Selas' ground-floor apartment listed reasons why he is unconvinced Sela is the rapist, DNA match or not. "The composite drawing the police put out doesn't look like Benny at all," he noted.
Pictures of Sela's face have been banned from publication; the woman neighbor described him as "short, dark, pleasant-looking, with a big nose." The store owner, who likewise didn't want his name published, added: "I never saw him looking at women with any kind of suspicious-looking stare. Interestingly, the one thing he never talked about was women."
According to his neighbors, Sela was not the classic quiet fellow who kept to himself.
"He was friendly with everybody, he'd talk about politics, about everyday things. He used to play soccer with the kids at the schoolyard on Fridays," said the store owner. "He didn't have much of a sense of humor, though. When he smiled, it was sort of a half-smile. He didn't join in the joking around that goes on in the store. It was like he thought it was too childish for him. He was a serious person, spoke well, never cursed."
THE Selas' building is dilapidated, with broken, moldy plaster, and a makeshift metal roof. A dirty bathtub lies against a wall in the entryway. The nameplate on the Selas' door features the sarcastic graffito: "The dreamhouse of the Sela family."
He has two younger brothers in their 20s - an IDF combat soldier and a computer company employee. "They're all wonderful young men, never got into any trouble. I have one daughter, and I used to say it's too bad I didn't have three sons like them," said the store owner.
They didn't know Sela as well as they think, though: Neither the neighbor nor the store owner knew he had been in prison. "You know how it is - the mother would say he had gone to America for a while," said the neighbor.
"He used to come into our apartment, he'd eat at our table," she continued. "He would always fix things for me - he liked to tinker around with radios and electrical appliances. He also liked to bake cakes, so he would ask me for recipes. He was like any other young person around here - hanging around down in the street, talking."
Said Shoham: "Of course the neighbors say he's a nice guy. He's not psychotic, he's compulsive."
In other words, Sela doesn't hear voices or act visibly deranged; aside from his suspected secret rape compulsion, he functioned normally, Shoham said.
Sela worked as a plumber and motorcycle messenger boy, and shared an apartment with a girlfriend (while continuing to spend much time at his mother's home) for a number of years before the woman broke the relationship off some months ago.
How is it that a serial rapist can simultaneously carry on a live-in relationship with an unknowing woman - in Sela's case, with a law student - over the course of years?
"His girlfriend was his legitimate front. He got his real kicks from the rapes. He was addicted to the rejection he got from his victims, and to the fear he inspired in them when he raped or assaulted them," said Shoham, describing Sela's personality as "cunning, logical, and manipulative."
Shoham said he made his suppositions partly on the basis of Sela's 1996 sexual-molestation trial. The Tel Aviv District Court judge in that case described Sela as a "pious speechifier who doesn't hesitate to lie."
He was convicted of molesting his young female cousin, who used to sleep over from boarding school at his family's apartment. Sela did this even as his girlfriend at the time was sleeping with him in his room.
Shoham noted that for a compulsive rapist, the difference between molestation and rape is "only technical. Penetration is not the issue; the issue is dominating the woman, forcing sex on her against her will."
Sela at first denied the cousin's accusations, but later admitted to "caressing" her with "gentleness and sensitivity." He said he denied the accusations at first out of consideration for the girl.
"[The cousin] filed a complaint, but I denied it because I wanted this story to end on a good note, seeing that it was a family matter. I also figured that she's a young girl, and making a big thing out of this could leave a scar on her," Sela testified.
In addition, he was convicted of sexually molesting a group of girls on the street in Netanya.
On the witness stand Sela portrayed himself as the victim of a troubled childhood - poor neighborhood, alcoholic, abusive father who committed suicide.
Describing why he left home shortly after his father's suicide, he testified, "I was living in Hatikva Quarter and I wanted to get away from that atmosphere...I blamed everybody [for his father's suicide] and ran away from home. When I was 14 I started living at different kibbutz boarding schools."
As to why he "caressed" his young cousin, Sela speculated that he might have done it out of "dumb teenage curiosity." He was sentenced to two years in prison, but released by a parole board six months early for good behavior.
Reporter Haim Hecht said on Channel 2's Nissim Mishal talk show this week that prior to Sela's release, psychiatrists at Ayalon Prison warned that Sela remained a danger to the public. A spokeswoman for the Prisons Service said the parole board's decision noted only that Sela refused psychiatric treatment in prison, and that the board made no mention of his being dangerous. The spokeswoman said she was unaware of any warning about Sela from prison psychiatrists.
Shortly after his release in May 1998, the string of suspiciously similar rapes - which subsided while Sela was in prison - resumed with greater frequency (see box).
What Sela did not mention in his "pious speechify[ing]" at the molestation trial, and which he reportedly claims now, is that he was sexually abused while at boarding school. "You have to consider that he might be making this up now to gain sympathy," Shoham noted.
One thing that baffles Sela's neighbor and contributes to the grocery store owner's skepticism is that Sela was alone with their daughters many times, yet never tried anything with them.
"I'd be at work, and he'd come in to ask for a screwdriver or something, and he'd be in this apartment, alone with my two teenage daughters, and he never so much as touched them," said the neighbor.
"He was in here alone with my daughter plenty of times while she was looking after the store, and nothing happened whatsoever," said the grocery store owner. "A lot of parents in the neighborhood have been saying this. There are a lot of girls around here, and Benny never did anything to them." Shoham suggested that Sela left the neighborhood girls alone because it was too risky to go after them; until the end, after all, he was determined not to get caught.
About a month ago, the store owner recalled, Sela was in the store and the topic of conversation was the feared Tel Aviv serial rapist whom police were desperate to catch.
"I remember I said the two kinds of people I despise the most are pimps and rapists," the store owner said. "I said that if I ever caught the rapist, I would pull his fingernails out, and hammer nails into them, and pour salt on the wounds.
"Benny didn't say anything," the store owner continued. "I've been racking my brains trying to remember what sort of expression he had on his face, but I can't say for sure. When I try to remember his reaction, I can see this vague picture in my mind - of this tiny little smile on Benny's face - but I don't know if I'm just imagining this, or if he really did smile."
By Larry Derfner
Jerusalem Post - December 24, 1999
http://www.jpost.com/Editions/1999/12/24/Features/Features.707.html
(December 24) -- While the Tel Aviv serial rapist was running loose, police took a lot of flak for failing to catch him.
Tal Korman, head of the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, is one of the critics of the police investigation. She thinks they could have caught Sela much earlier than they did.
She noted that the serial rapes subsided for the year and a half that Sela was in prison for sexual molestation, and started up in earnest almost immediately after he was freed in May 1998.
"Why didn't they check the sex offenders who were released around that time? If they had, Sela would have been one of the first suspects they would have questioned," says Korman.
As it was, the police's computerized search method led them to interview 956 suspects - but not Sela. The only special police work involved in Sela's capture was the presence of police patrols in Hadar Yosef, where Sela had raped before, and where he ultimately returned.
Police had 1,770 names in their computer log of suspects - males who fit the victims' description of Sela's height and age, and who had motorcycles. Police divided the 1,770 matches into a hierarchy of categories: 1. convicted rapists; 2. convicted sexual assailants; 3. convicted sexual molesters. Sela fell into the third and least likely category.
"If we hadn't caught him when we did, our computer search would have led us to him within a few weeks," said a police official. "It's easy to have the wisdom of hindsight, but police intelligence did their work the way it's supposed to be done, and the critics simply don't know what they're talking about."
Another criticism voiced by Korman and others is the news blackout police imposed on the locales of the rapist's assaults, and details about his methods - a ban which the court forced police to lift last August. Had the public known where and how the rapist was capturing his victims, women might have taken more effective precautions, critics say.
"In one case he went into the electricity box of an apartment building and turned off all the power, and when a 12-year-old girl opened her door to see what had happened, Sela attacked her. But we only found that out later. If the police had allowed the press to publish those details when the attack happened, maybe girls staying alone in their apartments would have known not to open their doors immediately when the lights went out," said Korman.
A police official said the reason for the ban on such details was to keep Sela from finding out what the police knew. The official suggested that the court's lifting of that partial news blackout helped Sela evade police.
"Among the evidence we found on him were press clippings about his case. We think he was changing locales and methods according to what he read in the papers," said the official.
By Larry Derfner
Jerusalem Post - December 24, 1999
http://www.jpost.com/Editions/1999/12/24/Features/Features.706.html
(December 24) -- The discovery that Benny Sela, the suspected Tel Aviv serial rapist, was paroled from prison for good behavior after serving 18 months for molesting his female cousin - starting when she was eight and continuing until she was 15 - has renewed charges that sex offenders here get off mighty easy.
"You don't have to look far - on the same day Sela was arrested, the leader in the Ramat Hasharon gang-rape case got four years in prison, another one got two years, and a couple of the others got six months' community service," said Tal Korman, head of the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel.
This, she noted, after the judge in the case said the defendants - all teenagers, legally minors - showed no remorse, saw themselves the true victims in the case, and stood by their claim that the 15-year-old victim - whom they'd "passed around" among themselves - had asked for it.
"Six months' community service - they would have gotten more if they'd stolen a car," said Korman.
In a survey of some 1,700 Israeli court sentences for violent crimes handed down between 1988 and 1993 taken by attorney Rochelle Don-Yechiya, she found that "over one-third of those convicted of sex crimes did not receive prison sentences at all."
When prison terms were meted out for rape, the average term was two-and-a-half years, she added.
Amazingly, the punishment meted out for sex crimes committed against minors tended to be lighter than those for sex crimes against adults, continued Don-Yechiya, who conducted her research with Dr. Rina Bogosh in a project initiated by the Israel Women's Network.
"And I'm sorry to say that women judges tended to hand down lighter sentences in sex crimes than the male judges did," she added. She speculated that the reason might be that "women judges subconsciously went out of their way to appear 'objective,' for fear that they might be accused of bias in favor of the female victim."
Israeli judges tend to have a "stereotyped, conservative, outdated" notion of rape, Don-Yechiya continued. "They seem to think of rape as the kind you see in the movies - where the rapist is a stranger preying on his victims."
In fact, said Korman, 87% of rape victims know the rapist - he can be a friend, a co-worker, a family member.
In the rulings, judges often remarked on the defendant's "permissive behavior, how she was wearing a mini-dress," Don-Yechiya noted.
Attorney Ayelet Golan-Tavori, a legal adviser to the Israel Women's Network, added: "Defense attorneys play on the judge's sympathies, saying a harsh conviction will ruin the young man's future, he won't be able to take the IDF's pilot's course, or he's an old man and he'll die in prison, he's a Holocaust survivor."
The new fashion in rape defenses, said Don-Yechiya, is to claim there was no rape, just regular old sex between two consenting adults.
"In the old days defendants would deny that they had sex with the woman at all, and it was difficult to find conclusive medical proof that they had. But defendants can't make that claim anymore because of the DNA identification tests. So they say the woman wanted it," she noted.
Rape sentences have gotten tougher, however, in the last year-and-a-half, ever since a law went into effect mandating that prison terms in sex-crime convictions be at least one-quarter of the maximum sentence, said Don-Yechiya.
"The situation is improving, but terribly slowly," she said. (The maximum sentence for rape is 16 years, and 20 years for aggravated rape, which includes gang rape, rape of a minor, rape accompanied by armed threat or certain other circumstances.)
Knesset Law Committee Chairman Amnon Rubinstein disagreed that sentences for sex crimes are still too lenient.
"There have been a number of tough sentences handed down in such cases in recent years," he said. "The problem is what happens when they get out of jail."
In a few weeks the Knesset will discuss ways of safeguarding the public from sex offenders coming out of prison, Rubinstein said, suggesting that one likely measure is to warn residents when an ex-offender settles in their vicinity.
Korman said all sorts of public safety measures have been instituted in the US, including posting pictures of released sex offenders in local supermarkets; prohibiting them from moving into neighborhoods with a large proportion of young women and children; banning them from working in schools or other places where children and young women abound; and even attaching electronic tracking devices to their ankles. "I'm not saying I'm in favor of every one of these measures, but certainly there are things we can do," she said.
ANOTHER aspect of Sela's history that has enraged critics of the penal system is that he refused medical or psychiatric treatment while in prison for sexual molestation. "We don't have the legal right to force treatment on any prisoner," noted Levana Lev-Ishai, a spokeswoman for the Prisons Service.
This has raised suggestions that Israel follow the lead of US states like California, Texas and Arizona by requiring repeat sex offenders to undergo castration in prison - either the real, surgical kind, or a chemical version that neutralizes male sexual hormones - or live the rest of their lives behind bars.
The rate of recidivism among convicted sex offenders is commonly quoted as 70%.
"A 25-year study done in Texas found it to be 75%," said Prof. Ariel Rosler, an endocrinologist at Hadassah Hospital who has performed reversible "chemical castrations" on some 50 former sex offenders over the last five years. Only five or six have gone back to their crimes, he said, and these only after they stopped the monthly medical treatment, so that their sex hormones were reactivated and their sexual desire returned.
"They all take the treatment voluntarily," Rosler stressed.
His subjects are non-violent offenders - pedophiles, exhibitionists, and voyeurs - not rapists, he noted.
"Rapists act out aggression, they have other pathologies besides sexual ones," Rosler said. But he said the treatment should be tried out on rapists, because they don't rape unless they first feel sexual desire, and the treatment - using the experimental drug Decapeptyl - takes away that desire.
The subjects in Rosler's research project can get psychiatric therapy to go along with the anti-hormone drug. "But no therapy - behavior modification, hypnosis or anything else - can by itself rehabilitate sex offenders, because their sex drive is stronger than any psychiatric therapy. Only by retarding the sex drive can they be rehabilitated," he said.
Israeli prisons offer sex offenders a combination of psychiatric therapy and a similar form of "chemical castration," using the drug Androcur. Androcur, however, features debilitating side effects such as depression or hepatitis, which can be fatal, while Decapeptyl has no such effects. Decapeptyl, however, is much more expensive and it is not yet approved by the Health Ministry for general use, he noted.
Rosler also favors requiring chronic sex offenders in Israel to undergo chemical castration, although not the surgical kind, which he called "atrocious."
Surgical castration was the typical punishment for rape in European countries around the turn of the century, he pointed out. A study was once conducted on 3,000 European sex offenders who had been castrated, and it found that only 2% of them returned to sex crimes - using their hands or some instrument, he said.
"Chemical castration works just as effectively as real castration," he said.
Benny Sela still refuses to cooperate with his
defence attorneys.
By Writer: Vered Lovits
Ynet - July 27, 2000
(Translation from Hebrew to English by Na'ama Yehudah)
The regional court in Tel-Aviv decided today that if by the time of the next
deliberation in Sela's matter arrives, Sela's plea to the charges agaist
him will not be recieved by the court, the court will see this as a total
denial.
In a deliberation that took place today (Thursday) in the regional court in Tel Aviv in the matter of Benny Sela, the serial rapist, it was decided that if Sela will not respond to the allegations against him by the time the next deliberation in his case is due, the court will see it as a complete denial of the charges agaist hime.
The delibarations in the case of Benny Sela started in January 2000. Since then, the court met nine times, where in each one of the meetings Sela's defence attorneys requested that the deliberations be delayed until the next meeting. The reason for the delay was that in all the times, Sela refused to cooperate with his defence attorneys. The defence attorneys requested that the court relieve them from representing him, however, the court denied their motio and appointed Sela two additional defence attorneys, Erez Melamed, Attorney at Law, and Eyal Simchoni, Attorney at Law.
The two said in court today, that they estimate that until the next deliberatino, that is due in about a month and a half, they will have in their possesion a plea from the defendant in regards to the charges made against him.
Benny Sela convicted of 13
rapes
By Heidi J. Gleit and Itim
Jerusalem Post - Tuesday, October 3 2000
http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2000/10/03/News/News.13177.html
The Tel Aviv District Court yesterday convicted Benny Sela of raping 13 women in the Tel Aviv area over the past few years. Sela, the so-called serial rapist, confessed to the crimes as part of a procedural arrangement in which the Tel Aviv District Attorney's Office agreed to drop seven other counts of rape for which there was not strong evidence.
As a result of the agreement, the rape victims will not need to testify in court.
Sela's attorney, Eyal Simhony, noted that the deal was not a plea bargain as it did include any provisions regarding sentencing. Arguments for sentencing are scheduled for next month.
Na'amat chairwoman Hedva Almog said that while she would have preferred for Sela to have been convicted for all of the offenses, she is pleased that an arrangement was reached that prevents the rape victims from being traumatized a second time on the witness stand. She added that she hopes that Sela will still receive a heavy sentence.
Sela, 28, of Tel Aviv, terrorized young women in the Tel Aviv area for nearly five years until his arrest last December. Police initially suspected him of committing almost 40 violent rapes and sexual assaults.
Court rejects Sela's plea for immediate
sentence
By Heidi J. Gleit
Jerusalem Post - Wednesday, November 29 2000 (3 Kislev 5761)
http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2000/11/28/News/News.16406.html
(November 29) - Tel Aviv District Court yesterday rejected Benny Sela's request to skip the arguments for sentencing and immediately sentence him for raping and sexually assaulting 13 young women in the Tel Aviv area over the past few years.
Sela made the request following a dispute with the lawyer the Public Defender's Office appointed to represent him.
Sela, the so-called serial rapist, confessed to and was convicted of 13 counts of rape and sexual assault as part of a plea bargain agreement reached in October. In exchange, the District Attorney's Office agreed to drop seven other charges for which it did not have strong evidence. As a result of the plea bargain, the victims did not have to undergo the trauma of testifying in court.
The court also rejected the prosecutor's request to allow one of the victim's fathers to testify during the arguments for sentencing, on the grounds that the intention of the plea bargain was to prevent the victims from further suffering.
Sela, 28, of Tel Aviv, terrorized young women in the Tel Aviv area for nearly five years until his arrest last December. Police initially suspected him of committing almost 40 violent rapes and sexual assaults. In addition to sexually assaulting his victims, Sela also brutally beat some of them.
Itim contributed to this report.
Serial rapist Sela gets 35
years
By Heidi J. Gleit
Jerusalem Post - Monday, January 1 2001
http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/01/01/News/News.18342.html http://www.naomiragen.com/Columns/BulletsAndCorruption.htm
TEL AVIV (January 1) - The Tel Aviv District Court yesterday sentenced serial rapist Benny Sela to 35 years' imprisonment for sexually assaulting 13 women in the Tel Aviv area over the past three years. The court also recommended that he undergo treatment while in prison.
In sentencing Sela, 29, of Tel Aviv, Judges Nathan Amit, Edna Kaplan-Hagler, and Sarah Barosh noted that the sentence was more severe than previous sentences for sexual offenses. But, as Amit wrote in the decision, "It seems to me that never before in the history of the state has there been such a difficult indictment for these types of offenses. Every one of the 13 offenses of which he was convicted arouses revulsion and disgust."
Sela was convicted of breaking into the homes of young women and children late at night or early in the morning, binding and gagging them and raping or committing other sexual assaults on them while threatening them with a knife, and then forcing them to shower so that DNA testing could not identify him as the assailant. Sela also beat or robbed some of the women; others he videotaped in compromising positions.
Sela confessed to assaulting 13 women as part of a plea bargain in which the District Attorney's Office dropped charges detailing assaults on seven additional women for which it did not have overwhelming evidence.
"The accused committed offenses against young women, teens, and even children. He did so in their homes, surprising them at an unlikely hour, often when they were sleeping in their rooms, in their beds. His actions depended on the use of brute force, violence, threats, and abuse in a disgraceful and humiliating manner," Amit wrote.
"The accused committed the offenses against his victims like a beast with no sense of humaneness... The trauma the victims suffered due to his deeds left a scar on their souls that will not be erased until the end of their days. The circle of his victims includes not just the complainants but also those that are close to them."
In sentencing Sela, the court cited a number of legal precedents contradicting argument's by Sela's attorney, Eyal Simhony, that only murder should receive a sentence of over 20 years.
The court also reiterated that, despite Sela's troubled past and bizarre behavior during the trial and the police investigation, he was found fit to stand trial.
They also noted that Sela had meticulously planned his attacks and carried them out in cold blood and that, even though he had refused to cooperate with the court and the various lawyers the public defender's office appointed to defend him, he had submitted a long handwritten document in his defense.
In sentencing Sela, the court also took into account two previous convictions for sexual offenses which carried suspended sentences. The court noted that one of the assaults for which he was sentenced yesterday happened the day after his previous conviction, but before he was imprisoned.
Amit also submitted as evidence an anonymous letter which arrived at his home two days ago. The anonymous writer argues that the court should show Sela mercy because of the many difficulties he suffered throughout his life. The letter arrived after the majority of the decision was written and did not affect it at all, Amit said, adding that he regrets that the sender saw fit to approach the court in such a manner.
Na'amat chairwoman Hedva Almog praised the court for handing down such a harsh sentence, adding she hopes it would both deter potential rapists and encourage the court system to hand down heavier sentences for sexual offenses.
However, Yael Balla-Avni, acting director of the Association of Rape Crisis Centers, said that the sentence was not strong enough in relation to the number of offenses Sela committed and their severity.
She also questioned the court's decision to approve the plea bargain. While the deal saved the victims from having to testify in court and be cross-examined by the defense lawyer - an experience that further traumatizes many rape victims - it also generally results in a lighter sentence. Some of the victims may have preferred to undergo the difficulties of testifying against Sela in order to prevent him from receiving a lighter sentence, Balla-Avni said, adding that they were not consulted in the negotiations for the plea bargain.
FROM A DISTANCE: A shattered
dream
By Naomi Ragen
Jerusalem Post - Thursday, January 11, 2001
http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/01/11/Columns/Columns.19202.html
(January 11) While the people of Israel are reeling from one bus bombing, drive-by shooting and negotiating nightmare to another, Knesset members are busy capitalizing on our distractions by passing one corrupt law after another.
For example, when the recent wave of Arab killings began a few months ago, the haredi parties gleefully passed a law upping all the money coming out of government coffers for large families - a law meant to benefit haredim and Arabs. And when the time came to change the automatic exemption from army duty for yeshiva students, Knesset members happily passed a law extending the exemption, thus postponing, if not canceling, any meaningful debate on the legitimacy of allowing Israeli citizens to use their religious beliefs as a draft dodge.
And now, this week, the crowning blasphemy of what is known as "Deri's Law" was ushered through a successful second vote in the depleted ranks of the Knesset. Proposed by that do-nothing has-been who-never-was Ruby Rivlin of the Likud, the law reduces the sentences of rapists, murders, robbers and child molesters (among others) by half, instead of the present one-third. For "good behavior."
While the Likud proposed the law and supported it, it was, of course, members of the Shas party who were the vanguard. With black kippot on their heads, minyanim three times a day and a Bible in every corner, they are attempting to turn the already revolving door of our prison system into a sliding door that doesn't even have time to close before it opens again to let the criminals of the nation out.
Imagine it: Benny Sela, the Tel Aviv rapist who tortured, beat and raped dozens of little girls and women, terrorizing an entire city for months, could be back in Tel Aviv in 15 or so years - courtesy of Shas and the Likud.
Before the scandalous and unconscionable law came up for a vote, parents of murdered children wandered fruitlessly through the corridors of the Knesset begging MKs to vote against it. As reported in Yediot Aharonot, bereaved mother Ora Baraz, whose daughter was murdered, pleaded for the law's defeat: "It is an immoral law that shows the callous attitude of the state toward the victims of violence. For 50 years this country has been passing laws to improve the rights and conditions for criminals, while the victims and their families have been ignored. Now rapists, child molesters and thieves will wander among us in droves."
But these heartfelt words apparently fell on deaf ears. Knesset members like Dalia Itzik, Avraham Burg, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Roni Milo - very vocal friends of jailed former interior minister and the power behind Shas, Aryeh Deri - decided not to show up to vote against the law that was tailor-made to help their friend - a convicted bribe-taker and felon - avoid serving even a fraction of his jail term.
AS WE SIT here on the eve of a fateful election, it is heartbreaking that the people of Israel now face a choice between Ehud Barak, who has allowed our security to become so lax that the only current Israeli response to terrorism is to die; and Ariel Sharon, whose party has aligned itself with criminals and ruthless opportunists like Shas, in passing laws that bring us all closer to living in a corrupt banana republic.
As we weep for the terrible days behind us, and the even more devastating days ahead if we continue in the direction we're going, we should weep loudest for the bankruptcy of the entire political leadership of this country as it continues to fail the people of Israel on every front: political, moral and spiritual.
We had a dream, all of us, those who were born on the kibbutzim in 1948, and those who flocked to the little Jewish state in all the years since then: We dreamed of building a beautiful little haven for the remnants of the Jewish people, wherever they lived. We would be the flower of 3,500 years of Jewish prayer, learning, poetry, talmudic law and Bible study. We would plant fruit trees, and reap harvests in green fields. We would work with our own hands to build safe homes for every Jew from every land; we would banish fear, want and injustice from our people's history. We would be here together, no outsiders, all children of the same father, all equal. We would find our way back to our roots, deepen our understanding and our practice of the moral law that made us a special nation, that was our gift to the world.
Israel, 2001. What a mess it's all become. What a shattered dream.
But I still believe. The Israeli people are depressed. They are not listening, their attention is elsewhere, on the bullets that are flying, the buses exploding. We need to focus.
And when the "Deri Law" comes up for its third and final vote before becoming law, we have to let our politicians know that Deri's law for the encouragement of crime has no place in our country, or in our dream.
By Neri Livneh
Haaretz - Monday, July 29, 2002
Over the past few years, three pedophiles have been active in a small neighborhood of South Tel Aviv. How did it happen that so many children were systematically abused without anyone intervening?
There are no secrets in the small neighborhood. The apartments are crowded and the walls are thin. The stairwells are narrow and dark. Life takes place outside, in the yard, in the parking lots between the apartment buildings and mostly in the nearby park that is closed in by dense bushes. It was in that park, say social workers, that 30 of the neighborhood's children were sexually abused over the past four years.
Last week, a resident of the neighborhood, D., was indicted in Tel Aviv District Court. He is charged with committing sodomy and indecent acts on at least four children. The real number is probably higher. Ha'aretz reporter Roni Singer revealed last week that D. was a good friend of Oren Danan, also a neighborhood resident, who was accused two months ago of abducting an underage girl from the neighborhood, sexually assaulting her, trying to murder her and leaving her rolled up in a carpet. In the course of confessing to the charges against him, Danan said he knew Benny Sela well - referring to the "serial rapist" who was convicted in October, 2000 on 13 counts of rape. Sela lived not far from the neighborhood. Danan was not the first neighborhood resident to be charged with sexually assaulting minors. Three years ago, Avraham Ger, a 24-year-old man from the neighborhood, was arrested on suspicion of raping five- and six-year-old girls and of sodomizing a thirteen-and-a-half-year-old boy. He was acquitted of the rape charges, but served 13 months in prison after being convicted of the sodomy charge. Ger was rearrested last October and accused of committing an indecent act against an underage girl, who also lives in the neighborhood.
How did so many horrific events occur over such a lengthy period? Did no one in the small neighborhood know that so many children were being systematically abused by their neighbors? What are we to make of the conspiracy of silence that made this possible? And why, even now, with the police already in the picture, are so many residents still afraid to speak out?
A local store owner explains: "Everyone knew that all the Sodom and Gomorrah in the world was concentrated in this neighborhood. Everyone knew for years that there were pedophiles here and everyone kept quiet. Everyone knew that Avi Ger was a nut case. He even worked for me at one time. Everyone knew about his inclinations, everyone knew about Oren Danan, and most of all everyone talked about D. But his family is violent, so people were afraid of him and no one had the courage to open his mouth. There is no law in this neighborhood and no police. People here are not the poorest, but they are the most thuggish and that is why, even though they knew there were pedophiles here, they kept quiet and kept it a secret."
The brave woman
It took years before one neighborhood resident, whom I will call "the brave woman," learned about the horrific acts D. had been perpetrating on her son from the time he was nine years old. If she hadn't decided to fight him relentlessly, it is possible that D. would still be walking about freely today. At least twice in the past he was caught by youngsters in the neighborhood in the act of sexually assaulting minors behind the bushes in the park. They hit him and chased him off, but it never occurred to them to involve the police.
When the brave woman's son told her what D. had done to him, she was "shattered, shocked and totally devastated." She decided to take her son to file a complaint with the police. To her astonishment, the court placed D. under house arrest in his parents' apartment, which is close to her home. Nevertheless, she decided not to give in. For some parents and children the story evoked harsh memories they had tried to forget. Because of the brave woman's initiative, other complaints were submitted against D., and eventually he was rearrested and indicted on four counts so far.
Even though it was thanks to her that the conspiracy of silence was broken, the brave woman is also regretful today. She, too, knew about D. and what he was doing years ago. When her son was 10, she heard that D. was pestering him, that he had made the boy take off his clothes and sit in his lap. Deeply agitated, the brave woman went to D.'s father and told him what his son had done. The two of them then went to the park and found D. The father hit him and D. promised never to do it again. D.'s father, who was questioned by the police, confirmed this episode.
"In my opinion," the brave woman says, "D.'s parents knew what he was doing all along and didn't even try to stop him. I definitely blame them and I am also afraid. I have gone through a lot in life and I am not a healthy woman. Since my son told me three weeks ago about D., I feel I'm falling apart. My husband and I and the boy just sat down and cried and cried and then we said to our son, `Now we are going to do something very hard, something that you need to be very brave for. We are going to go to the police and we will see to it that D. gets the punishment he deserves. It might be hard for you and people might talk, but you have nothing to be ashamed of, you are the good one and he is the monster, and you have to be proud that we are going to fight the monster.'
"That's what we said to the boy, but I have a huge family and I don't want them to know anything about what happened to him, because I am simply afraid of what they will do. I am afraid they will try to get revenge on D.'s family. But I am just falling apart. I also have a boy of three and a half. I bought him a plastic pistol, and what was the first thing he said? He said, `Do you know the first person I am going to shoot? The first person is D.'"
The denying woman
Many people knew what was going on but preferred to ignore the warning signs. Another woman who lives in the neighborhood, whom I will call "the denying woman," only worked up the courage to lodge a complaint to the police in the wake of the brave woman's actions. She first heard about what D. was doing from her daughter five years ago, when the girl was 10. She told her mother that D. was sexually abusing her and was putting out lit cigarettes on her hands. For reasons that are almost beyond comprehension, she decided to ignore it, condemning her daughter to more years of abuse.
"`Don't you have anything else to tell me? What nonsense you are talking' - that's what I said to her," the denying mother recalled this week. "I didn't believe it about him. I knew him very well. I know his mother. He is from a perfectly good family in my opinion and he was a nice boy, who I would meet in the park and have a laugh with. It's true I heard once he abused a six-year-old boy, but I met him in the park and asked him if what I was hearing about him was true and he denied it. `Come on, it's not me,' he said, and I believed him. That's why I didn't believe my daughter, either. You know, he was a boy who lacked for nothing at home, so why in the world would he want her at all? What could he possibly want from her? She wasn't one of those bombshell girls with bottoms like a bagel, she was as straight as a board, and I thought to myself, who could get turned on by something like that and why in the world would he start up with her in the first place?"
It was only when the brave mother told her about what D. had done to her son that the denying mother understood her daughter had in fact been sexually abused. "Suddenly there was this click. Suddenly I understood that the girl hadn't lied. On the spot, I called the police."
She wasn't the only one who didn't understand what was going on. None of the teachers in the various schools from which her daughter was expelled due to behavior problems (she was termed "hyperactive") tried to discover the source of the trembling she suffered from. None of them asked about the burns that regularly adorned her arms. Even her mother reacts with a blank smile when she is asked why she didn't bother to check about the burns, and then adds, "You know how kids are, and my daughter was getting hurt all the time. The school was the one that noticed that there was something wrong with the girl. Today I also see that her deterioration - and it was a very extreme and sudden deterioration - began right after she told me that D. abused her.
"Suddenly she started with the shaking, she stopped eating and she slept badly and had all kinds of symptoms. At school they said she had problems, and another girl once told me that my daughter has problems, but it sounded like nonsense then. There was no way that I connected it with what she told me about D., which I had forgotten about, because it sounded like nonsense. I guess I didn't want to believe what I didn't want to believe. I thought it was all from hyperactivity, so I gave her more Ritalin and I went to see psychiatrists. One psychiatrist even said the girl should be removed from her home, but what mother would agree to that? Luckily, another psychiatrist said, `No, that's just the way the girl was born and you have to give her more medicine.' So I gave her more medicine and I thought everything would work out in the end."
The family's economic problems are plain to see. "You can see the way the house looks," the denying mother says. "That's why I was always happy that the children like to play in the park. Even now I am not afraid of anything. Smaller children than mine are playing downstairs and I know nothing will happen to them because they are in a group. You only get scared when they are alone, and that was the trouble with the girl; she was always alone, because from an early age she was an outcast. Probably because of that, it was easier for D. to get to her."
She is convinced the relations with her daughter will be much improved from now on. "She hardly leaves my side now, she loves me terribly," the mother says. At these words, the daughter, a beautiful, very thin girl, who has been sitting with her mother for the duration of the interview, gets up and stalks out of the room. But that doesn't deter the mother. "The event brought us very close," she says, adding that her daughter's social situation is also much better now. "She was always an outcast, but now, after she went to the police, the children are calling her from downstairs for the first time in her life to come and play."
The girl
Abruptly, the conversation takes another surprising twist. The mother says she hopes the episode will be a springboard for fame and glory for her daughter. "My daughter wants to be a model. The truth is, I agreed to the interview and I would like the girl to be photographed, because maybe that way some photographer will discover her and make her a model. You know, she's really gorgeous now. I'll call her in right away and you have to see what beautiful hands she has. She was just born to be a model."
The girl comes back into the room. "Can you arrange a `big sister' for me?" she asks. "That's what I'd like. And also to get revenge on D. to the death. I have already learned how to fight and how to resist."
Asked how she felt when her mother didn't believe her story, the girl replies, "Hurt and angry and that there was no one I could trust. My conclusion is that, if something like that happens, you must absolutely not tell anyone before you tell the police. First tell the police and only then tell your parents, because you can't trust your parents. Whenever something happens now, the first thing I do is pick up the phone to Nir [Superintendent Nir Sinai, head of the juvenile department in the relevant police district]. For example, I told her that a few days after we complained to the police, D.'s mother grabbed me on the street and said she would kill me."
This comes as a complete surprise to the mother. "You never told me that," she says, "you only said she made signs as though to slaughter you."
"I told you and I told Nir," the girl says, "but you never understand anything."
Even after hearing this, the mother insists that D.'s mother is "just fine. Why should I be angry with her? Is it her fault that her son is like that? If my daughter was a thief, would it be my fault? Each to themselves. I blame D.'s parents a little - not, heaven forbid, for his behavior and for what he did to my daughter - but because they had a problem and they didn't do anything about it. I think if they saw that their boy had a problem, they should have done everything to get him help, the way I helped my daughter. I didn't have money for food, but I took her to psychiatrists and I got her private lessons. That is what being parents means. I took responsibility. Parents have to listen to their child's problems and treat them. That is what D.'s parents should have done and what I did."
"How do you explain the fact that you didn't want to hear anything about my problems and about what D. was doing to me?" the daughter asks, to which the mother replies coolly, "Maybe I was also wrong. But then you weren't such a bombshell and the whole thing didn't sound logical. I know I did wrong and my husband is also very angry with me. All the time he asks me, `Why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you tell me what she said?'"
The daughter says she felt a little better after lodging the complaint. "It was a relief that people believed me and that they are going to put D. in jail and that I won't have to be afraid anymore. But I am also a little ashamed, because the children here are making fun of me a little and also of the other children that D. raped, and also of the others that didn't complain to the police but everyone knows who they are."
The frightened woman
The rumor that D. had been arrested after complaints against him were filed with the police had the effect of buttressing the courage of another boy whom D. abused. A volunteer who works with teenagers in the neighborhood heard, like many of the residents, that the boy had been victimized by D. He persuaded the boy to tell his teacher what had happened. He did so and the teacher reported the event to the principal, who called the boy's mother and told her her son had been raped.
The volunteer and the brave woman picked the boy up after school and went with him to the police to lodge a complaint. However, the boy's mother was furious when she heard her son had been to the police. "D. didn't pester him much and there is no reason to make a big deal out of it. My boy doesn't need any help or any treatment. He is perfectly fine and nothing happened."
What do you mean, nothing happened? He was raped, wasn't he?
"Yes, but D. didn't rape him too many times, and in the meantime we don't live in the neighborhood anymore. Before that, D.'s parents lived across from us. They are actually very nice people."
Did they call you to ask you to forgive them?
"No. Why should they ask me to forgive them? Besides, now, thank God, we moved to another neighborhood. The principal told me the boy should get help, but he's wrong, everything is all right, the boy is fine and I want to know as little as possible about these things, and that is what I told him, too. The less you talk, the better, I said. My husband doesn't want people to know anything about it, either."
The social worker
Varda Horesh, a social worker by training and the coordinator of the child and family division in the eastern section of the Social Services Administration in the Tel Aviv Municipality, is convinced there are more sex offenders in the neighborhood. "I counted five pedophiles in the neighborhood in the past four years," she says. "That is because there are also pedophiles who have been released from prison and have returned to the area," she explains.
Who, for example?
"Here's a challenge for you: Ask the Prisons Service which pedophiles from that neighborhood are out of jail and are living there again. Let's see if you get an answer."
The Prisons Service spokesman did not return a call about the subject.
Horesh also says she is convinced the number of pedophiles in this particular neighborhood is no greater than in any other neighborhood. "In better-off neighborhoods, the subject is kept better hidden," she says. "There is actually greater exposure of the subject in poorer sections." Still, she concedes, "The socio-economic situation in a neighborhood has a certain influence. Situations of economic distress and a high concentration of poor, single-parent families constitute a hothouse for the growth of social pathologies and perhaps also explain the particular type of indifference that exists in the neighborhood."
She notes that "The large number of children who fell victim to sexual assault and abuse had far less an effect on the frame of mind in the neighborhood than we hoped would be the case. After the acts of Oren Danan were reported, we expected people in the neighborhood to snap out of their complacency and start to be aware of what is going on, of what is happening to their children. We even conducted a survey in the neighborhood to examine whether the Oren Danan affair was generating a furor and we were very concerned when we discovered that people were reacting indifferently. In subjects like this, the mechanisms of denial and concealment work at full steam and it is not characteristic only of people of a certain type. The same mechanisms operate to a degree even on professional people, even on me."
So shouldn't you approach the children and offer help?
"When we have information, we do that. But in the current state of affairs, in which a social worker has at least 140 files and sometimes 300, it is very difficult for us to make house calls other than for specific purposes. Even then, if we find out that there is a child in the house who has behavioral or psychological problems, we don't necessarily conclude immediately that he has experienced sexual abuse. Behavioral problems can be due to the relations between the parents, to social pressures, or to economic distress. In the existing state of affairs, if we do not have prior information, there is no way we can initiate an attempt to locate children who have undergone sexual abuse. Of course, when we learn from the child or the family or the police about such a case, we offer all possible help."
Horesh completely rules out the theory that is now making the rounds in the neighborhood, that the pedophiles influenced one another and that pedophilia was a kind of "fashion" in the neighborhood. "Pedophilia is not like youth suicide, when publicity is liable to turn it into a mode. Pedophilia is a very deep personality disorder and very difficult to treat. It is unreasonable to think someone will become a pedophile because he has been influenced by another pedophile, unless he himself has the personality background that fits the case."
Nor does Horesh believe that people in the neighborhood knew that children were readily available victims of pedophiles but preferred to turn a blind eye. "What is more reasonable is that each of them kept the secret to himself and told no one else. The children didn't tell the parents and the parents didn't tell the police or other parents. The result was a circle of silence, and that is exactly what makes it possible for the pedophile to act."
Horesh adds that she knows from the juvenile probation authorities that the three pedophiles were physically abusing children since their youth. All three went through the probation service but refused to receive treatment. "Unfortunately," she notes, "there is a law in this country stating that you cannot force treatment on sex offenders and rapists - which I believe is an outrageous state of affairs."
Does this neighborhood have any special traits that might account for the fact that it produced so many pedophiles? Ettie Boukai, head of the juvenile probation service in the Tel Aviv District, believes the concentration of pedophiles in a particular neighborhood is a chance event and that the same story could play itself out in a great many other places, too.
Miriam Faber, head of youth welfare services in Tel Aviv, says that mutual influence is possible among three pedophiles who grew up in the same neighborhood and are friends. "It's possible they boasted to one another and thus encouraged each other. That is something for the police to check."
In the past year, Faber has received about 3,000 reports of cases involving sexual attacks on children. "Let us assume that some of the reports are incorrect and let's say that only a thousand of the children were victims," she says. "We have to take into account that a great many of the victims are themselves liable to become sex offenders. It is very important to identify sex offenders early, and certainly also their victims. The trouble is that there are very few experts on the subject in Israel. Nevertheless, we are working with those experts to try to create a program for training social workers and therapists who will specialize in the area of sex crimes. So far, 60 people have taken the course, and 30 more will soon take it. I admit this is a far smaller number than what is needed, but it is all we can do."
The psychiatrist
This description irks Dr. Viki Levy, a psychiatrist who is an expert on sex crimes. "The fact that I and my colleague, Dr. Ruth Fliesshauer, are perhaps the only two experts in the country in the area of sex crimes should have set off every possible alarm bell," she says. "You were told that there aren't enough experts in Israel? Well, I happen to know a great many experts in this field in Western countries and in the United States, and I invited many of them to Israel to teach; the problem is that no one is actually interested in what they have to say. People in this country simply refuse to learn. It is inconceivable to find ignorance of this kind on such an important subject in any other Western country. So I don't think the point should be to blame the neighborhood, and the question is not whether the three men in question were friends and knew about each other's deeds. No, that is just something that the police have to look into.
"The point is that people understand nothing in this field, and I am talking about educated and respected people, such as judges and juvenile probation officers and the State Prosecutor's Office and teachers. But even though they have no understanding of the subject, they insist they know what they're doing and refuse to learn."
According to Levy, not only are the sentences meted out to pedophiles almost always too short ("It's impossible to even start treating a sex offender in a period of less than three years"), there is also no program to ease their way back into society after release and no proper supervision. "A pedophile must not be released unless there is a way to keep tabs on him," she says. "D. will now face trial for crimes he committed up to two years ago, but you can be sure that in the past two years he did not stop committing the same acts. That is the nature of sex offenses, as anyone can easily find out. But here, the judges aren't even willing to go into the Internet and find out what is considered basic knowledge in every Western country.
"For example, before an offender like this is released, I would want him to undergo a rehabilitation program and to wear electronic handcuffs so the police will be able to know when he wants to go to the park again. All kinds of prohibitions should be imposed on him. He should have to undergo polygraph [lie detector] tests regularly. Someone also has to make sure he doesn't turn up as a guard in some school or in a kindergarten."
Levy rejects the thesis that there is a connection between area of residence or socio-economic status and sex offenses. "Sex offenses cut across all classes and all population groups. It is possible that poor neighborhoods are more convenient for sex offenders to live in, because odd people are more easily integrated there." (Possibly this explains the frightening concentration of pedophiles in the neighborhood.) The education system in the neighborhood should have spotted the children's distress, Levy says, and parents who don't believe their children or don't allow them to complain to the police should be taken in for questioning on suspicion of abuse. "It is abuse and criminal negligence in regard to the most basic obligation of parents as parents. Unfortunately, however, this is a kind of neglect that is also not necessarily typical of low socio-economic population groups."
Ignorance of the subject prepares the ground for the growth of baseless myths, which are prevalent among people who deal with sex offenses without the proper training. "The myths that have to be shattered once and for all are that sex offenses are related to heightened sexual impulse. That is totally without foundation. We all have sexual urges but we all learn to control them, just as we learn to control our other bodily functions. What sex offenders need is someone to teach them that they have to learn to control their sexual urges.
"Another dangerous myth is the contention that everyone who has been the victim of sexual abuse will become a sex offender," Levy continues. "The majority of the victims will not become sex offenders. What is true is that most sex offenders have a background of being sexual victims. Another myth is that any treatment is better than no treatment: that is utter nonsense. There are a great many people who did not receive the proper training to treat sex offenders, but they take sex offenders for treatment and we are all at ease, including the offenders. They think they have got over the problem, and then, after having been supposedly treated, they go free and attack again. Take the case of Oren Danan: He said he thought he was better because he received treatment.
"Another myth is that this is a psychiatric problem that can be dealt with by means of medicines. We don't even have a psychiatric profile of sex offenders, so it is impossible to treat the problem solely with medicines. Chemical castration, which some genius always starts talking about in these cases, is no more than a tiny fraction of what should be a complete system of treatment. It will do no good at all without comprehensive treatment. Comprehensive treatment is very complex and protracted, and it has to teach the offender to revise his personal fantasies, and that takes time.
"These guys don't need chemical castration. They need someone to force them to stop doing what they are doing and lock them away for a long enough time so that it will be possible to treat them, and then when they are released, we have to see that they are monitored so it will not be possible for them to go back to doing the same things. But for all that to happen, we need judges and prosecutors and probation officers who will be willing to learn."n
Jailed rapist charged with harassing
victim
By Zvi Harel
Ha Aretz - Mon., January 12, 2004 (Tevet 18, 5764)
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/381860.html
Benny Sela, who is currently serving a 35-year jail term, was yesterday charged with sexually harassing a young woman he was convicted of raping four years ago. Sela, 33, was convicted of 13 counts of sexual assault, rape and sodomy against young woman, some of whom were minors at the time.
According to the charges brought against his in the Tel Aviv District Court yesterday, Sela wrote to one of his victims, who is now 17, and detailed the offenses he had committed against her, how he planned the attack, where he raped her and her home address. Sela gave the letter to his mother during one of her visits, and, that same night, she placed it in the girl's letterbox.
Convicted serial rapist Benny Sela appeals 35-year
sentence
By Yuval Yoaz and Zvi Harel, Haaretz Correspondents
Ha'Aretz - Mon., January 12, 2004 Tevet 18, 5764
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=382183
The lawyer for Benny Sela, currently serving a 35-year jail term for 13 counts of sexual assault, rape and sodomy, appealed Monday to the Supreme Court for a reduction in his sentence.
Sela, 33, was found guilty two years ago of assaulting the young women, some of whom were minors at the time. He carried out attacks in the Tel Aviv area for five years until his arrest in December 1999.
Sela's attorney, Sarah Habib of the public defender's office, expressed support for a severe punishment for her client, saying that "it is clear that there is a need for a jail sentence of over 20 years."
But, she said, "a punishment of over 35 years in jail is too harsh, from the point of view of a chance of rehabilitation and reintegration into society after serving the sentence."
On Sunday, Sela was charged with sexually harassing a young woman he was convicted of raping four years ago.
According to the charges brought against him Sunday in the Tel Aviv District Court, Sela wrote to one of his victims, now aged 17, and detailed the offenses he had committed against her, how he planned the attack, where he raped her and her home address.
Sela gave the letter to his mother during one of her visits, and, that same night, she placed it in the girl's letterbox.
Convicted serial rapist Benny Sela appeals 35-year
sentence
By Yuval Yoaz and Zvi Harel, Haaretz Correspondents
Haaretz - January 20, 2004
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=382183
The lawyer for Benny Sela, currently serving a 35-year jail term for 13 counts of sexual assault, rape and sodomy, appealed Monday to the Supreme Court for a reduction in his sentence.
Sela, 33, was found guilty two years ago of assaulting the young women, some of whom were minors at the time. He carried out attacks in the Tel Aviv area for five years until his arrest in December 1999.
Sela's attorney, Sarah Habib of the public defender's office, expressed support for a severe punishment for her client, saying that "it is clear that there is a need for a jail sentence of over 20 years."
But, she said, "a punishment of over 35 years in jail is too harsh, from the point of view of a chance of rehabilitation and reintegration into society after serving the sentence."
On Sunday, Sela was charged with sexually harassing a young woman he was convicted of raping four years ago.
According to the charges brought against him Sunday in the Tel Aviv District Court, Sela wrote to one of his victims, now aged 17, and detailed the offenses he had committed against her, how he planned the attack, where he raped her and her home address.
Sela gave the letter to his mother during one of her visits, and, that same night, she placed it in the girl's letterbox.
Court rejects rapist's appeal against severity
of sentence
By Haaretz Service
Haaretz - January 20, 2004
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=384646
Benny Sela, currently serving a 35-year jail term for 13 counts of sexual assault, rape and sodomy, has lost Supreme Court appeal against the severity of his sentence.
Sela, 33, was found guilty two years ago of assaulting the young women, some of whom were minors at the time. He carried out attacks in the Tel Aviv area for five years until his arrest in December 1999.
Sela's attorney, Sarah Habib of the public defender's office, expressed support for a severe punishment for her client, saying that "it is clear that there is a need for a jail sentence of over 20 years."
But, she said, "a punishment of over 35 years in jail is too harsh, from the point of view of a chance of rehabilitation and reintegration into society after serving the sentence."
The court rejected these arguments, saying that Sela's actions were deseving of the full severity of the law.
Earlier this month, Sela was charged with sexually harassing a young woman he was convicted of raping four years ago.
He allegedly wrote to one of his victims, now aged 17, and detailed the offenses he had committed against her and how he planned the attack.
JTA - November 24, 2006
http://jta.org/page_view_breaking_story.asp?intid=5729
A serial rapist escaped custody in Tel Aviv.
Benny Sela, who terrorized women in central Israel for five years until his arrest in 1999, ran off handcuffed after he was taken out of a car on his way to court Friday. Police launched a massive manhunt, including helicopters.
It was unclear why Sela was out of prison; court traffic is typically light on Fridays, and police officials could not explain the nature of the hearing for Sela, who is serving a 35-year sentence on 13 counts of rape, assault and sodomy.
By Vered Luvitch
Ynet News - November 24, 2006
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3332241,00.html
Police, helicopters search for convicted serial rapist Benny Sela, who managed to escape prison by fooling police, Shin Bet and court system
Police launched one of the largest manhunts in Israeli history Friday after the humiliating escape of convicted serial rapist Benny Sela Friday morning, on his way to a fabricated court hearing.
At around 9 p.m. Friday police focused the manhunt on the southern Tel Aviv area, where his mother resides after the mother's neighbor reported to police that Sela had visited the house.
Police arriving on the scene identified a man fleeing, who matched Sela's description. Police cruisers were searching the area and roadblocks were set up on adjacent streets. Likewise, a police chopper was called to the scene.
Meanwhile, Ynet has attained the Tel Aviv Labor Court judge's decision to summon Sela to a court hearing on December 21 at 11 a.m. However, the document in the hands of the Shin Bet, according to which Sela was taken out of his cell and brought to court in Tel Aviv, reads November 24, 7:10 a.m.
The explanation for the disparity in dates is not yet clear, although the document Ynet attained was apparently the only one issued by the court.
The summons was issued after in 1999 Sela filed charges against a former employer. Sela claimed the employer owed him money, and sued him at the Labor Court.
Since 1999, deliberations on the issue were held without Sela's attendance and were delayed numerous times. The accused filed a special request to cancel the charges. Sela, in response, turned to the court in an emotional letter asking not the erase the charges.
In the end, the court decided to allow Sela his day in court: On the 21st of December. And now the special probe committee appointed by the internal security minister will have to figure out how Sela was taken out of his cell in November for a December hearing? How did he manage to fool the Shin Bet, police and court system, in a heist the scale of which has never before been witnessed in Israel?
Interior Security Minister Aviv Dichter instructed the appointment of a
special committee to probe the circumstances of the escape. The committee will be headed by Maj. Gen. (Res.) Amos Yaron. Dichter gathered Police Chief Moshe Karadi and Prisons Authority commander Yaakov Ganot for a special meeting in Tel Aviv.
Dichter said, "Our first mission right now, in light of the major failure here, is to put capturing the convict Benny Sela at the top of our priority list, either by the police or the other bodies that can contribute.
"I have directed the police to devote all resources to the cause. In parallel, we are investigating the failure in the police and Shin Bet."
Police blunder: Serial rapist escapes
by Avi Cohen
November 24, 2006
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3332090,00.html
Police
at scene of escape (Photo: Yaron Brenner)
Massive search after serial rapist who is serving a 35-year sentence escapes from police officers outside Tel Aviv court; growing suspicions that he had planned escape as woman spots him taking off jail uniform under which he was wearing pair of jeans
A serial rapist escaped from a Tel Aviv court on Friday morning, forcing police to launch a large-scale search operation to try to arrest him.
Benny Sela is serving a 35-year sentence for 14 rape and sexual assault offenses he committed in Tel Aviv.
Sela and another inmate were escorted by police officers from the Nitzan jail to Tel Aviv for court hearings. He apparently managed to escape handcuffed when the convoy stopped on Weizman St. to drop his inmate at the Tel Aviv Magistrates' Court.
Hours after his escape, police received a call from a female bystander who said she had spotted him taking off the trousers of his jail uniform and running on a major street near Rabin Square in the city. Sela was apparently wearing a pair of jeans under his uniform, strengthening suspicions that he had planned the escape.
"I called 100, and told police that I can see him. I ran after him and tried to catch him. He carried on straight to a parking lot between two buildings," Rehava Yosfi, a Tel Aviv Municipality who was the last person to see Sela, told Ynet.
He was due to appear before the Labor Court on Shocken St, police said initially, but it later appeared that the Labor court has its doors closed on Friday which created a rift between police and the Israel Prison Serive over the incident.
Police chief Moshe Karadi appointed a committee to probe the circumstances of his escape but Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter overturned the decision saying he will appoint a retired police commander to investigate the incident.
Police want to know why the Prison Service transported Sela out of prison to the court on a day when no hearings are held.
Dichter summoned Karadi for talks over the mishap.
In 2000 Sela was sentenced to the toughest sentence ever handed down on a rapist in Israel.
Police blunder
Police admitted Friday that the escape was a serious failure.
Retired deputy police commissioner Menachem Frank, who oversaw the arrest of Sela during his tenure as the commander of the central unit in the Tel Aviv District told Ynet: "I am shocked. I was the commander of the operation and it was the operation – the largest of its time. It took us almost ten months until we arrested him."
Asked if this is in fact a blunder he said: "I don't understand how this happened. I believe they will check how it happened, and will reach the appropriate conclusions. What is important now is to arrest him and I believe he will be arrested. In the first place, he will go underground ... But the minute he starts moving, intelligence will bring him to us. We need to act with level-headedness."
Former Tel Aviv District chief Yossi Sadvon, told Ynet that the escape was a police "blunder."
Sadvon said he is convinced that Sela will be arrested: "It happened many times in the past that criminals escaped from outside courts ... but lately escapes have been limited through security and police escorting, but there is no doubt this is a blunder."
Rebecca Anna Stoil
The Jerusalem Post - November 24, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1162378472990&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The Israel Police and the Israel Prisons Service (IPS) traded accusations Saturday night as it became increasingly clear that a series of errors led to the escape of one of the country's most dangerous criminals from police custody.
Almost two days after the escape of serial rapist Benny Sela in Tel Aviv on Friday, the law enforcement community faced harsh criticism as Sela's trail grew cold and questions abounded.
Sela escaped from police custody in what Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter called a "huge failure," and on Saturday night police expressed concern that the rapist might already have left the Dan region.
Almost 2,000 police and Border Police officers from around the country were searching for the 34-year-old convict in Tel Aviv Saturday night. Until Friday morning, Sela was serving a sentence of 35 years and nine months at Eshel Prison in Beersheba. Sela was sentenced in December 2000 for sexually assaulting 14 women in the Tel Aviv area and is suspected of involvement in almost 40 sexual assaults and rapes in the 1990s. Before he was arrested, Tel Aviv women lived in fear of what police dubbed in 1999 the "Tel Aviv serial rapist."
The police emergency hot line fielded more than 300 calls offering information on Sela's whereabouts on Saturday. In the morning, a man who lives in the same south Tel Aviv neighborhood as Sela's mother told police that he saw a man fitting the description of the rapist leave her home. Police immediately set up mobile checkpoints in the area, but could not find any evidence that Sela had been in the area.
Hours later, dozens of police officers converged on the Arlozorov Train Station in north Tel Aviv after receiving reports of a man in the area who fit Sela's description, but to no avail. Witnesses said the man fled when officers approached him.
Meanwhile, Israel Police chief Insp.-Gen. Moshe Karadi, facing harsh criticism for mishandling of Sela's custody, held a situation assessment on Saturday.
"The central mission of the police right now is to apprehend the prisoner Benny Sela, and for this mission we are allotting the maximum amount of manpower and equipment," Karadi said during a meeting of the police's general staff during which he delineated plans for dealing with the most embarrassing incident to face the police this year.
Police, he said, would continue the searches, which would be extended beyond Tel Aviv, and investigate the escape itself. In addition, he said, police emergency hot line operators would be instructed to exercise special awareness, and all officers would be forced to undergo retraining on escorting prisoners.
Sela's escape from police custody in a parking lot at the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court Friday morning sparked the largest criminal manhunt in Israel's history.
Representatives of the court said it appeared that Sela's appearance at the court was due to a lucky error - or to a carefully planned forgery.
Prisons Service officials were presented with a document claiming that Sela had been ordered to appear at the Tel Aviv Labor Court on Friday morning. On Thursday night, Sela was transferred from Eshel Prison to the Nitzan Detention Facility near Ramle, escorted by four heavily armed guards from the IPS's crack Nachshon Unit.
Early Friday morning, two Tel Aviv police officers arrived at the facility and were told to escort Sela and a suspect in a fraud case to Tel Aviv courts. The officers said that until they arrived, they were unaware that they were to transfer Sela - who is in the IPS's most dangerous category of criminals.
Short of equipment, the officers restrained Sela's hands, but not his legs, for the ride. When the police arrived at the Labor Court, they realized that the courts are closed on Friday, and decided to bring him to the Magistrate's Court on Rehov Weitzman while deciding what to do with him. It was in the courtyard of that court that Sela managed to evade his police guards, scale a 2.3 meter wall topped with barbed wire, and escape into the busy streets of Tel Aviv.
The last confirmed sighting of the serial rapist occurred over an hour later, when residents reported a suspicious man removing brown prison-issue pants in a public park in the middle of the city.
Investigators expressed surprise as to how Sela, who is 1.65 meters tall, was able to scale the wall in seconds while he was handcuffed.
Throughout Saturday, speculation increased that the escape was much more than a lucky break. After court officials opened their records, investigators discovered that Sela was only supposed to receive a summons on December 21, and that no summons had been sent out. Investigators then began to check if someone inside the court or the IPS had assisted Sela.
Fellow prisoners said Sela had been exercising "obsessively" every day for several months, reaching a high level of physical fitness, and witnesses said that when Sela took off his prison-issue pants, he was wearing civilian clothing - blue jeans - underneath.
Tel Aviv Police chief Cmdr. David Tzur said officers were providing security for several of Sela's victims and were trying to contact others.
Three hours after the escape, Karadi arrived at the escort unit and received an overview of the incident from Tel Aviv District Commander Cmdr. David Zur. Hours later, Karadi's boss, Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter, described the incident as "embarrassing... a humiliating failure."
As the day wore on, more and more revelations highlighted the chain of failures behind the escape. Police complained that the Prisons Service was not required to warn police in advance when transporting a dangerous prisoner.
The IPS, in turn, said that in previous transfers of dangerous prisoners, police had also sent only two officers - including one driver - to accompany them to court. Both sides agreed there was no clear procedure for the Prisons Service's handing over prisoners to police custody.
Public Security Minister Avi Dichter: Sela's escape an
'embarrassing mistake'
By Roni Singer and Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondents
Haaretz - November 25, 2006
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/792374.html
Police
searching for convicted rapist Benny Sela (inset) in Tel Aviv on Saturday,
a day after he escaped from custody. (Motti Kimche)
Public Security Minister Avi Dichter on Saturday called the escape of serial rapist Benny Sela an "embarrassing and fatal mistake."
In an interview with Channel 2 television, Dichter said he ordered the man-hunt for Sela to be conducted as if the convict had "already struck after escaping from prison."
David Tzur, commander of the Tel Aviv District Police, suspended the two officers who were escorting Sela at the time of his escape until the matter is investigated.
Police are investigating the possibility that Sela, who escaped from a police car in Tel Aviv on Friday, received assistance in his escape from within the court system, as he was in possession of a summons for a hearing scheduled for Friday morning.
Sela is serving a 35-year sentence for 14 counts of sexual assault, rape and sodomy on women in the Tel Aviv area for five years prior to his arrest in December 1999.
In the afternoon, large numbers of police arrived at Tel Aviv's Central Train Station, after police received a report of a possible sighting.
Some 2,000 policemen and volunteers on Saturday continued the search for Sela across Tel Aviv. The coast guard is also conducting an intensive search along the beaches, and Sela's picture has been distributed to police stations across the country. The search also includes Border Police officers and air surveillance.
A heavy police presence was in evidence across Tel Aviv following Sela's escape. "No one is at home tonight," a policeman told a local resident Friday night.
Performer and television personality Uri Geller, a self-described telepathist, arrived at the rail station to assist in locating the convict, but police reportedly relied on conventional methods of pursuit.
According to Geller, he was "sending Sela messages to turn himself in."
A special investigation team established by Tel Aviv District's central police unit, which includes detectives who had worked on Sela's arrest, is trying to establish how prison authorities accepted Sela's court summons despite the fact that the Labor Court, where his hearing was purportedly set to take place, is closed on Fridays.
Police investigators believe that Sela presented the prison authorities with a forged court summons, which led to his trip to the court in the police car from which he escaped.
The police have not ruled out the possibility that someone inside the court had an active role in issuing the summons, but are also examining the possibility that it was sent by mistake.
Police detectives arrived at the Labor Court on Friday evening to review documentation on the summons.
Amos Yaron to lead probe into escape
Public Security Minister Avi Dichter announced Friday that he has appointed Major General (res.) Amos Yaron, the former director-general of the Defense Ministry, to head an external commission of inquiry into errors by police that led to Sela's escape.
Dichter also named Brigadier General (res.) Miki Bar'el, a former senior officer in the Military Police, as well as Brigadier General (res.) Udi Shalvi, the former deputy commander of the IDF Ground Corps, to participate in the investigation.
Representing the police on the inquiry panel will be Brigadier General Bentzi Sau, who was recently ordered to step down from his position as chief of operations at the Public Security Ministry over his alleged misconduct during riots in the north in October 2000.
The committee is scheduled to conclude its investigation and announce the findings by this coming Thursday.
Dichter overruled a decision by Israel Police Commissioner Moshe Karadi to appoint an internal police committee into the escape. Dichter, who was furious at Karadi's decision, called Karadi and Prisons Service director Ya'akov Ganot for a meeting over what he said was a "serious error" on the part of the police.
Sela spotted at mother's home
On Friday night, police launched a house-to-house search and set up roadblocks in Sela's mother's south Tel Aviv neighborhood after a local resident spotted a man fitting the description of the convict at her home. The witness reported that he also saw the man flee from the area.
Sela, 35, was handcuffed and wearing a white T-shirt, brown prison-issue pants and white sneakers when he escaped. However, his pants were later found in a public park on King David Boulevard in central Tel Aviv, and a witness said he had changed into jeans. The police have asked the public to aid in the search.
Police suspect that Sela has remained in central Tel Aviv, but they are also examining the possibility that he had planned his escape and had access to a getaway car.
The initial investigation into the circumstances of Sela's escape raises the suspicion that it was meticulously planned. A witness told investigators that he had worn the jeans beneath his brown pants in advance, apparently with the knowledge that he would need to get rid of the prison-issued pants.
Commander Menachem Frank, who had led the force that captured Sela in 1999, told Haaretz that, "Sela is a very calculating and devious man who plans his actions carefully. I don't know whether he escaped in order to exact revenge or in order flee the country, but there is no doubt that locating him will become more difficult the longer he remains at large."
Tzur said police were investigating why Sela was taken from prison on Friday, knowing that the city's Labor Court, where Sela was apparently heading, is generally closed Friday.
"We understand that there has been a serious mishap," said Tzur.
An initial investigation into the incident shows that early Friday morning, Israel Prison Service police escorts arrived at the Nitzan prison, where Sela is serving his sentence.
Police took Sela and another inmate to Tel Aviv for hearings. Sela's summons apparently had instructions for him to arrive at the Labor Court on Schocken Street in south Tel Aviv, but escaped when the police escort car first stopped at the city's Magistrate's Court to drop off another inmate.
According to police, one of the officers who escorted Sela said that when he was taken out of the car, he started running and jumped over a three-meter wall.
Tzur said that police have contacted some of the women who were attacked by Sela to inform them of his escape.
"We did not have information on Sela's possible escape and his intention to contact the women," said Tzur. "We haven't guarded their homes and we aren't convinced that they are in danger. I will not underestimate the risk, so I therefore sent an urgent message and turned to the public to aid us in his capture."
Tzur said that the first priority is Sela's capture, and police will then investigate the circumstances that led to his escape.
Police: Only public will find serial
rapist
YNet - November 25, 2006
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3332312,00.html
Large police forces dispatched to Tel Aviv's central railway station Saturday following reports escaped convict Benny Sela was seen in area; some 2,000 police officers searching for serial rapist since morning hours. Simultaneously, investigation enters high gear, police sources do not reject possibility Sela was aided by element inside system
Still free: A day after serial rapist Benny Sela's escape , more than 2,000 police officers and volunteers deployed in the streets of Tel Aviv Saturday morning in order to continue the search for the escaped prisoner.
In spite of the wide-scale search, police officials estimated that only the public will help capture him.
At around 11 a.m., large police forces were dispatched to Tel Aviv's central railway station following reports of citizens who saw Sela in the area and watched him escape as the police arrived.
In the meantime, a special investigation team is attempting to discover how Sela managed to fool the system, and whether he received any help from the inside.
Police Chief Moshe Karadi held an special discussion Saturday morning following Sela's escape.
At the end of the meeting, Karadi instructed police commanders to expand the search for the prisoner to other districts as well, to continue the investigation into the escape and to brief police officers on procedures for accompanying prisoners.
Meanwhile, the investigation into the serial rapist's escape entered high gear Saturday morning. A joint police and Israel Prison Service team, headed by Commander Danny Avimeir, is checking Sela's court summons, which seemed completely authentic.
Sources in the police told Ynet that they were looking into the possibility that an element inside the system issued the forged summons.
In addition, the Tel Aviv Police is also looking into the fact that the Israel Prison Service failed to inform the accompanying police officers in advance that they were driving a dangerous convict.
Benny
Sela during court hearing (Archive photo: Jeremy Feldman)
The Tel Aviv District Police said in a statement that "as part of the comprehensive inquiry into the feeding of the summons into the system, all options are being checked."
On Friday evening, Commander Avimeir instructed to open the Labor Court and receive Sela's file. In addition, the police were attempting to locate the serial rapist's relatives in order to check whether they helped him following his escape.
The Tel Aviv District Police forces were boosted Friday night with volunteers and police officers from across the country, including the Southern District, the Central District, the Northern District, and even the immigration police.
The police was aided by many volunteers, off-road vehicles, dogs, mounted police and helicopters circling in the air. Police sources added that Sela's picture was in each police car in Israel , although the search for him still focuses on the Tel Aviv metropolitan area.
Efrat Weiss contributed to the report
World News
AFP - November 25, 2006
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2470248,00.html
JERUSALEM Police were searching for Israel's worst convicted serial rapist, who escaped custody while being taken to court in Tel Aviv. Benny Sela was sentenced to 35 years in prison in 2000 for the violent rape of 14 women. (AFP)
Rapist vanishes over courthouse wall
By Roni Singer-Heruti, Jonathan Lis and Nir Hasson
Haaretz - November 26, 2006
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/792479.html
Benny Sela, who was convicted of raping 14 women in the Tel Aviv area and sentenced to 35 years in prison, escaped from police custody Friday morning as he was being escorted into a Tel Aviv courthouse.
Sela managed to scale the tall wall surrounding the courtyard where the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court holds prisoners awaiting a hearing. He then jumped from the wall and fled.
Dozens of policemen, who over the course of the day became hundreds and then thousands, began a manhunt for him. The hunt initially focused on Tel Aviv, but it later expanded to the entire Gush Dan area. As of press time, however, he remained at large.
Public Security Minister Avi Dichter appointed an external inquiry committee to determine how Sela managed to escape, which will hold its first meeting today. Dichter has asked it to present its findings by Thursday.
The committee will be chaired by former Defense Ministry director general Amos Yaron, and its deputy chair will be Mickey Barel, a former commander of the Military Police. Dichter told Haaretz yesterday: "It's completely clear that when I appointed such senior people to head the committee, its mandate will not be to deal solely with the lowly guards."
However, the two police guards from whom Sela escaped have in the meantime been suspended.
Four months ago, Dichter decided that the responsibility for taking prisoners to and from court should be transferred from the police to the Israel Prisons Service (IPS), and announced that he intended to do this by the end of next year. However, a senior police officer predicted that the inquiry panel would recommend moving up the hand-over. The police, he explained, generally uses its least experienced men for transporting prisoners, whereas the IPS assigns its best men to this task. Therefore, he said, it would be better to transfer it totally to the IPS.
But whatever structural recommendations the committee might make, an initial inquiry conducted by the police on Friday has already revealed that numerous failures to conform to existing procedure enabled Sela's escape. These included an erroneous notice from the Tel Aviv Labor Court stating that Sela had a hearing there on Friday, when in fact, his hearing was not until December 12; the police's decision to send Sela from Ramle Prison in a low-security transport that had already been arranged for another prisoner who had a hearing at the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court that same day; and the fact that only his hands were cuffed, and not his legs.
During the drive to Tel Aviv, the two guards discovered that Sela in fact had no hearing that day, so they took him with the other prisoner to the Magistrate's Court. As they were bringing him into the prisoners' courtyard, Sela suddenly turned around and began to run. He climbed up the gate in the wall surrounding the courtyard, reached the top, jumped down on the other side and fled.
About an hour after his escape, with the manhunt already in motion, the police received a call from a Tel Aviv resident who had heard about the escape on the radio and said she had seen Sela in a public park on the city's King David Street. But when the police arrived, four minutes later, Sela was gone: All they found were his brown prison pants, with his name on them.
The resident, Revaha Yosefi, said she had seen Sela removing the pants, and he was wearing jeans underneath. She did not notice whether he was still wearing handcuffs.
Since then, police have received hundreds of calls from Tel Aviv residents who thought they had seen someone resembling Sela, but none have resulted in his capture.
In addition to the manhunt, the police have stationed guards around the victims who testified against him, the prosecutors in the cases and the judges who convicted him, for fear that he might perpetrate revenge attacks.
They are also interrogating Sela's fellow prisoners in an effort to determine whether he planned his escape in advance and whether he had outside help. If he had an escape vehicle or a hiding place arranged in advance, catching him again will be much harder.
If Sela has no outside help, a senior police officer said, he will be recaptured in "three to four weeks." But even if he does have help, the officer predicted, he will have to emerge into the open eventually - if not to buy food, then to satisfy the violent urges that made him a serial rapist to begin with.
By REBECCA ANNA STOIL
Jerusalem Post - November 26, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1162378480821&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Thursday evening: Convicted serial rapist Benny Sela is transferred from Eshel Prison, where he is serving a 35-year, nine-month sentence for multiple counts of rape and sexual assault, to Nitzan Detention facility in advance of an alleged court date in Tel Aviv Friday morning.
Friday morning, 8:10: Sela is handed over to the custody of two Tel Aviv District policemen from the prisoners' transport unit
8:30: The police officers arrive with Sela at the Labor Court only to discover that the court does not hold hearings on Friday.
The police officers decide to take him to the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court while determining what to do with him.
Upon arriving at the courthouse on Rehov Weitzman, the two police officers park the transport vehicle in the walled courtyard, and begin to accompany Sela and the second prisoner into the building.
Sela tells one of the guards that he has left a personal item in the vehicle, and one policeman accompanies him back toward the vehicle.
When they walk back outside, Sela rushes past his guard, sprints to the wall and climbs over the 2.1 meter high, barbed-wire topped barrier.
8:55 a.m.: Police declare Sela to be an escaped prisoner.
11:00: Police confirm reports that they have found Sela's prison-issue pants after concerned citizens alert them to a central Tel Aviv park, where they have seen a man changing clothes.
By REBECCA ANNA STOIL
Jerusalem Post - November 26, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/Page/IndexPhoto&cid=1123495333335
Calling convicted serial rapist Benny Sela a monster might be the understatement of the year.
The man who attacked dozens of women and instituted a reign of terror across the Tel Aviv metro area in the late '90s is back on the streets, and Tel Aviv women have returned to the nightmares of a decade ago, when they were afraid to walk alone.
Sela, now 34, prowled the streets of Tel Aviv - and particularly south Tel Aviv, his home ground.
He grew up on Rehov Hanoch in a seedy neighborhood near the Hatikva market. When Sela was 13, his alcoholic father committed suicide within view of the family's apartment, jumping from an almost-four-story-high electrical pole.
In 1994, Tel Aviv began to witness a series of terrifying rapes and sexual assaults.
The attacker would ask his victims personal questions and force them to shower afterward to reduce the physical evidence. In three instances, he video taped his victims, threatening to publish the videotape on the Internet or to give them to their friends if they reported the attacks.
The rapist attacked women and girls in their homes, usually late at night or early in the morning, sometimes threatening them with a knife, sometimes beating them and sometimes robbing them.
He tied some of them up with telephone wire or stuck clothes into their mouths. He attacked one woman twice, and threatened another with a knife while her two daughters slept beside her.
In another case, he opened the electricity box and turned off the power for an entire apartment building. When a 12-year-old girl opened her door to see what had happened, Sela attacked her.
In 1995, Sela was arrested for the first time, and sentenced to two years in prison for systematically molesting his cousin from the time she was eight until she was 15 when she would sleep over at his family's apartment. According to court testimony, Sela would assault while his girlfriend of the time was sleeping in his room.
Despite refusing psychological treatment while in prison, and despite at least one psychologist's warning that he was still a danger to the public, Sela was released six months early for good behavior.
The attacks increased in the late 1990s, and under intense public pressure, police admitted that there was a serial rapist at large and launched a massive investigation.
Sela was finally arrested when he molested two teenagers in broad daylight, the he attacked in the open instead of behind closed doors, as far as is known.
The girls called for help, neighbors called the police, and officers who had been staking out the area nabbed the 26-year-old suspect.
After Sela's arrest, police noticed that the number of sexual assaults in Tel Aviv slowed. Police discovered that he had saved press clippings concerning his crimes.
In 1999, while awaiting trial, Sela tried unsuccessfully to escape from detention.
In October 2000, the Tel Aviv District Court convicted Sela of raping 13 women after he confessed to the crimes in a plea-arrangement in which the Tel Aviv District Attorney's Office agreed to drop seven counts of rape where the evidence was weak.
Two months later, Sela was sentenced to 35 years and nine months imprisonment for sexually assaulting 14 young women in the Tel Aviv area over a three-year period. Police believe Sela committed at least 24, and perhaps as many as 34, rapes, sexual assaults, and sexual molestations of women and girls over the course of five years.
Since then, Sela has been in Eshel Prison in Beersheba. According to fellow prisoners, he has increasingly been "fanatically" exercising and, apparently, waiting for an opportunity to return to the streets of Tel Aviv.
By Efrat Weiss
YNET - November 26, 2006
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3332433,00.html
Internal security minister defines Benny Sela's flight from jail as 'severe and disgraceful failure'; says police were instructed to act as if serial rapist had already assaulted someone
Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter referred Saturday evening to the escape of serial rapist Benny Sela from prison Friday as a "severe and disgraceful failure."
The searches for Sela have continued Saturday, and some 2,000 policemen and volunteers deployed across Tel Aviv to take part in the manhunt. At about noon, large police forces were dispatched to the northern Tel Aviv area after residents reported seeing Sela in the neighborhood, but policemen failed to locate the fugitive.
Some police officials said they fear that Sela has already left the Tel Aviv area. Consequently, police Chief Moshe Karadi decided to expand the searches and set up a nationwide search headquarters.
"The entire Israeli police is engaged in this matter, we are working both on the operational level and the intelligence level," Dichter explained. "The police invest efforts in searches outside Tel Aviv as well, but unfortunately we haven't been able to find a substantial lead so far. The instruction is to operate as if Benny Sela had already assaulted someone," he added.
'No lack of confidence in police'
Dichter noted that since Sela's escape the police have also been handling the issue of his victims and the judges that were involved in his trial, and keeping in touch with them.
When asked which officials will be held accountable for the incident, Minister Dichter replied: "Theoretically - from the minister level and down – everyone is relevant for the issue. This is a serious and shameful matter, but first of all the commission will present its findings and has been given a very short timetable for doing so."
Major-General (res.) Amos Yaron will head the inquiry commission appointed to investigate the incident, along with other generals.
Dichter stressed that his decision to appoint former army men to investigate the police and the prison service does not represent a show of no-confidence in the latter bodies. He explained that since both the police and the prison service were involved in the failure, he felt that an internal body should be assigned with the probe.
Police Searching for Convicted
Rapist
By Amihai Zippor
Israel Hasbara Committee (IHC) News - November 26, 2006
http://www.infoisrael.net/cgi-local/text.pl?source=2/a/ix/261120062
Police and intelligence officials continue the search for convicted rapist Benny Sela who escaped authorities in Tel Aviv on Friday morning 24 November 2006.
Sela was serving 35 years for 14 rape and sexual assault charges.
"The police are investing efforts in searches outside Tel Aviv as well, but unfortunately we haven't been able to find a substantial lead so far," Police Chief Moshe Karadi said on Saturday, 25 November 2006.
"The instruction is to operate as if Benny Sela had already assaulted someone," he said.
It is believed Sela's escape was planned but it is unclear if there was any inside help.
Though he was scheduled for a court hearing in December that was in connection with a suit he filed against a former employer whom he said owed him money, he was somehow transported out of prison a month earlier on a day the Labor Court was not even open.
As of Sunday afternoon a taxi driver near Netanya phoned police saying he gave Sela a ride but the rapist escaped after believing he was being followed.
Security officials are following the lead.
Meanwhile, Interior Minister Avi Dichter called police protocol surrounding the incident a "serious and shameful matter" and ordered an investigation into how such a serious criminal was able to plan one of the biggest escapes in Israeli history.
Rape Crisis Centers note rise in hot line calls
By RUTH EGLASH
Jerusalem Post - November 26, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1162378487589&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
As police continued to hunt for convicted rapist Benny Sela, the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel noted a marked rise in the number of calls received at its 24-hour hot line.
"We do not have exact figures yet, but all the centers countrywide are reporting a rise in the number of calls," Sharon Mayevski, spokeswoman for the association, told The Jerusalem Post Sunday. Figures released just last week, in time for the International Day of the Elimination of Violence Against Women, indicated that there had already been a 20 percent rise in the number of calls received by the center in the first half of 2006.
"I am sure that when we check the figures for these few days we will see an even greater jump," she said.
Despite the obvious fear that many women might be feeling now that the country's most notorious serial rapist is on the loose, Mayevski noted that in the statistics compiled by the association last week, only 11% of all reported rapes were committed by complete strangers. Rather, she said, some 90% of women find they are the victims of sexual crimes by someone they know.
"Even while I am talking to you, there are many women being hurt by their partners, fathers or someone else they know," noted Mayevski. "Benny Sela is only one example; there are many new rapists and victims every day."
Orit Leibovitch, a clinical psychologist and hot line coordinator in Jerusalem for the association, also emphasized this point, but she said it was natural for all women - whether they had been victims or not - to feel more vulnerable now that Sela was on the loose.
As for the many victims of Sela's crimes, Leibovitch pointed out that they were most likely feeling fearful and experiencing vivid flashbacks to the crime itself.
"Even though these women are told that he [Sela] won't be able to come back and find them, it does not really help," said Leibovitch. "The fear comes from an irrational place."
Leibovitch also said that even victims of similar attacks would be likely experiencing trauma right now. "While the general public is probably feeling angry that this man has committed these crimes, rape victims are probably experiencing a deeper internal fear and shock," she said, adding that because the authorities failed to keep this man locked up, many rape and sexual assault victims might now feel there was no serious protection out there for them.
Mayevski blasted the authorities for allowing Sela to get away and said they were certainly not doing enough to bring the suspect back into custody.
"A criminal has escaped, and aside from pictures in the media, no one knows what he looks like," she said, admitting that while she did not have experience in conducting a manhunt, a visit to Tel Aviv Saturday night did not reveal any great police presence searching for Sela. "They need to put up photos of him in the streets so that people will recognize him."
Mayevski added: "I am sure there will be an internal investigation into the matter but that will not really help his victims, who will have to go through this all again."
The Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel hot line can be reached at 1202 for women and 1203 for men.
By REBECCA ANNA STOIL
Jerusalem Post - November 26, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1162378483905&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Escaped serial rapist Benny Sela was reportedly spotted by a taxi driver in the area of the Beit Lid Junction, located on the old coastal road near Netanya on Sunday morning.
Police ordered residents in the Netanya area to be on alert for Sela, who escaped police custody on Friday and is considered highly dangerous to the public.
It is the first time police have asked residents outside of Tel Aviv to be on alert for Sela.
Jerusalem Post - November 26, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1162378485925&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Police Inspector-General Moshe Karadi said Sunday that serial rapist Benny was still on the loose in Tel Aviv.
Speaking at a police briefing, Karadi said police still had no concrete information on the location of the fugitive, but added that Sela had apparently had no accomplices in his Friday morning escape.
Additionally, Sela "was not supposed to go to ... the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court," Karadi said, but the convict ended up there by accident.
$23,000 Offered For Capturing Sela
Israel National News - Nov 26, '06 / 5 Kislev 5767
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=116316
(IsraelNN.com) A welfare and education foundation has offered a $23,000 (100,000 shekels) for the capture of escaped serial rapist Benny Sela. The Fisher Fund will pay the money also for anyone providing information leading to the arrest of the convict.
He escaped police custody on Friday while he was on the way to a court hearing.
'Prisons Service at fault for errant court
transfer'
By DAN IZENBERG
Jerusalem Post - November 26, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1162378487972&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
A secretary at the Tel Aviv District Labor Court mistakenly sent a summons to Benny Sela for a hearing last Friday, but the Prisons Service should have known that it was incomplete and phoned to double-check, Courts Administration spokeswoman Rivka Aharoni said Sunday.
Aharoni's statement followed an examination of the events leading to Sela's having been taken out of prison for a hearing that was not scheduled to take place for another month. During the transfer from prison to court, the handcuffed rapist leaped over an electric gate and escaped.
According to Aharoni, Sela filed a lawsuit against a former employer, Arye Diament, in Tel Aviv District Labor Court on March 6. The hearing was set for October 22. However, Sela did not turn up in court.
The court registrar handed down a decision that if Sela did not submit a statement explaining what happened within 30 days, the lawsuit would be canceled. She scheduled a hearing for November 24 to find out whether the suit was still in effect.
One week later, Sela asked the court to cancel the scheduled hearing and set a new date.
On the same day, the registrar rescheduled the hearing for December 21 and instructed the court administration to notify the sides. Sela was to be notified via the Prisons Service.
On October 30, a court secretary accidentally sent the Prisons Service via computer a summons for Sela for the originally scheduled hearing on November 24.
As soon as she realized what she had done, she sent another message canceling the previous one.
Two days later, the secretary sent by computer another message to the Prisons Service summoning Sela to the hearing on December 21.
Aharoni said that according to standard procedures the summons for a prisoner includes two documents. In addition to the invitation, the court sends another document entitled "Prisoner Summons" to any prisoner summoned to a court hearing.
Only the two documents taken together comprise a complete and proper court summons to a prisoner.
The "Prisoner Summons" is also sent from a different computer source than the invitation, explained Aharoni. Furthermore, the invitation for Sela that the Prisons Service erroneously received for November 24 did not include the court stamp or the secretary's signature.
Furthermore, wrote Aharoni, the Prisons Service usually calls the court before a hearing scheduled for a prisoner to make sure the hearing hasn't been canceled.
Aharoni told The Jerusalem Post that the Courts Administration "has behaved with total transparency [in examining the events behind Sela's erroneous transfer from prison to court]. I would expect that other authorities would do the same, instead of blaming us for the failure."
'All the sexual offenders have a very quick
mind'
By JASON TAITZ
Jerusalem Post
November 27, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1162378488126&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Even Prisons Service Chaplain Rabbi Philip Jacobs got a sense he was being conned by serial rapist Benny Sela.
Jacobs, one of the few regular visitors Sela had during his confinement at Nitzan Prison, recounted to The Jerusalem Post Sunday how Sela frequently contacted him, asking him for help. "He would regularly ask me for prayer books, candles for Friday afternoons, and once asked me to bring him a Bible," Jacobs recalled.
"My gut feeling was that he was trying to be manipulative when calling me, and just seeking attention from professionals," Jacobs explained. "Criminals like him would try to entice staff into conversations, but my communications with him was mostly professional, which was intentional on my part."
Jacobs said he had conflicting thoughts about Sela's ability to rehabilitate himself. "My hope as a rabbi and as a believing Jew was that Sela and others like him had some spark of humanity left in them. Unfortunately, I didn't feel that most of my serial rapists expressed any true remorse. They felt that what they did was justified, or that it was they who were the victims."
Jacobs, who authored the book True Stories of Hope and Redemption: Memoirs of an American Karate Champ Turned Israel Prison Chaplain - Israel Behind Bars, said based on his unsuccessful 1999 prison escape, police were aware that Sela might try it again. "My feeling was that those criminals serving long sentences like Sela never gave up hope of escaping and were not resigned to a life in jail. The Prisons Service is aware of that."
Sela's exploitation of his chance to escape did not surprise Jacobs. Prisoners like Sela, he said, had a very high IQ, Jacobs said, but had "a warped intelligence." He added: "All the sexual offenders have a very quick mind, are very manipulative, and are quick-tongued."
Sela sent letter to MK Eli Yishai before
escape
The Jerusalem Post - November 27, 2006
Several days before serial rapist Benny Sela escaped from police custody, he sent a letter to Labor, Industry and Trade Minister Eli Yishai, it was reported on Monday.
Writing as a "citizen" regarding a "consumer issue," Sela requested that Yishai allow the Barak telecommunications company to enter a legal tender against Bezeq for phone service to the Prisons Service, so that prisoners could use Barak as well as Bezeq.
The letter, which was sent to Yishai by Prisons Service registered mail, was given over to the police.
Experts: Sela poses 'no immediate' danger
to women
Judy Siegel-Itzkovich,
THE JERUSALEM POST - Nov. 27, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1162378488119&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Escaped
prisoner and serial rapist Benny Sela is unlikely to try to sexually attack
women during his first days on the loose, according to two prominent
psychiatrists who don't know him personally but who do know about the serious
personality disorder involved in such perversions.
While women should be on guard at all times, agreed Geha Mental Health Center director Prof. Zvi Zemishlany and Ben-Gurion University Prof. Eliezer Witztum, a person in his situation will do all he can not to be apprehended. His foremost urge is to remain out of prison and not to rape, they said.
"An escaped serial rapist is like a wild animal who hides, not one who seeks out females as his main urge. He wants to run away," said Zemishlany. "In such circumstances, sexuality does not have high priority. Sela is not a ticking bomb at this point."
He said the number of serial rapists is, fortunately, small, and they suffer from a very severe anti-social personality disorder that involves sadism. "There is genetic vulnerability to this, as well as a history of physical and emotional abuse as a child. Serial rapists do not necessarily have to have been raped or otherwise sexually abused when young. People who are less anti-social have other ways to follow their impulses, with regular partners, for example," said Zemishlany, who has studied the subject.
Witztum, who also has never met Sela or seen his personal file, said serial rapists have a strong violent bent that usually focuses on women. "They are not sick, unlike pedophiliacs. They have no insight. They know that if they escape, they will eventually be brought back to prison and punished. They often suffered traumas as children and grew up in chaotic households."
Up to 75 percent of people with serious anti-social personality disorders have a history of chronic abuse - physical and/or emotional, degradation and not necessarily sexual, Zemishlany added.
"There are many people who were raped but are good citizens. Serial rapists are very aggressive, and it is not correct to say that they are victims of violence. Other people have suffered abuse, even rape, but they do not become serial rapists or play out their urges as psychopaths. Serial rapists are criminals who don't care about their victims. They are anti-social people who get a surge of excitement when they commit these crimes and don't feel they are doing anything wrong."
Running away from prison is the dream of every inmate," added Zemishlany, and Sela's actions "certainly show persistence, lack of inhibitions and the feeling that he deserves everything he wants. Serial rapists have almost no inhibitory superego that tells them not to commit an act."
The two experts concurred that chemical emasculation by a once-a-month injection of drugs that counter the male sex hormone testosterone is neither effective nor necessary for serial rapists, Zemishlany continued. "There are no women in prison, so Sela doesn't have an opportunity. These drugs are given to pedophiles to stop their urge. In addition, it is forbidden to give this injection without the prisoner's permission and cooperation. If a serial rapist attacks male prisoners, he should be put into isolation. He is not defined as a psychiatric patient and is no successful treatment for personality problems like this."
"There is no treatment for this. They have to be isolated from society," Witztum stated.
Dr. Moshe Birger, chief psychiatrist of the Israel Prisons Service and a Health Ministry employee, gave several media interviews during the past few days, but by early Sunday afternoon, he was instructed by the ministry to stop speaking to the press because of patients' legal rights to privacy.
In the interviews, Birger said that he last met Sela six years ago, after the rapist was sentenced to a long term, after being asked to assess his mental state and to decide if he was suited to treatment. He said he concluded that treatment would be of no benefit. Birger added that he has not been in contact with Sela since then and was speaking only on the basis of media reports in recent days.
Serial rapists, explained Birger, "get pleasure from physical or sexual abuse and control of others and not from the sexual act." The state psychiatrist said that if anyone encountered Sela, he should run, call the police and "not be a hero," as "he is strong, dangerous and desperate... He is meticulous and intelligent. His escape was apparently not impulsive. He knows how to mislead people with his words and can persuade others how unfortunate he is. Initially, he will be more keen on escape than looking for more victims. But if he feels free among a population of women, his urges can return quite soon."
Letter to the Editor
Jerusalem Post - November 27, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1162378495403&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
Sir, - I was outraged by the title "Experts: Sela poses 'no immediate' danger to women" (November 27), which can give unsuspecting women a false sense of safety. Benny Sela should be seen as extremely dangerous no matter if it's his first hour or first week on the run.
Prof. Zvi Zemishlany is correct that "An escaped serial rapist is like a wild animal who hides." The problem: If Sela is hiding in a location where an unsuspecting woman is present, the likelihood of her being assaulted is extremely high.
Research into the treatment of sex offenders is still in its infancy. As of yet there has been no proven treatment for those who offend, especially for violent sex offenders such as Benny Sela.
VICKI POLIN
Executive Director
The Awareness Center, Inc.
Baltimore, Maryland
--------------------
Sir, - Reading the words of psychiatrists Profs. Zemishlany and Witztum I found myself shaking my head in incredulity. These authorities admitted they knew almost nothing about this specific creature, yet waxed prophetic about someone who has defied expectation at every turn.
This is topped only by the buffoonery of our national police and prison service.
JOSH MARK
Jerusalem
--------------------
Sir, - In the case of an escaped rapist it is better to be safe than sorry. I'd rather women were vigilant about their safety than have a false sense of security.
LAURA GOLDMAN
Tel Aviv
Karadi not quitting despite Sela snafus
rebecca anna stoil and jpost.com staff,
THE JERUSALEM POST - November 27, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1162378488084&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Police on Monday morning expanded the search for escaped serial rapist Benny Sela to Gush Tel Monde following a call from a local resident who claimed he knew Sela and had seen him in the area.
The resident said that he recognized the serial rapist because he had rented an apartment to him before being arrested.
Police were searching the surrounding orchards and settlements.
Also Monday, it was reported that Sela sent a letter to Labor, Industry and Trade Minister Eli Yishai (Shas) several days before his escape.
Writing as a "citizen" regarding a "consumer issue," Sela requested that Yishai allow the Barak telecommunications company to enter a legal tender against Bezeq for phone service to the Prisons Service, so that prisoners could use Barak as well as Bezeq.
The letter, which was sent to Yishai by Prisons Service registered mail, was given over to the police.
Meanwhile, Israel Police Chief Insp.-Gen. Moshe Karadi told Army Radio on Monday morning that despite the failures that led to Sela's escape, he had no intention of resigning.
One of those failures, Karadi added, was the inadequacy of the police escort.
"The prisoner was supposed to be handcuffed on his feet, as well, and was supposed to be escorted by a larger number of police, since the policemen who went didn't know that they were going to escort Benny Sela, so they went with a smaller number of police than what was needed," Karadi said.
On Sunday, police remained frustrated in their search for the escaped rapist as an independent commission began its own investigation, trying to uncover how a chain of critical errors enabled the 34-year-old to flee police custody.
As they held their first meeting, alarming details were revealed that only served to emphasize the complicated job that lies ahead.
The commission was established hours after Sela's escape Friday morning, when Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter pulled rank on Karadi and announced the creation of the panel to look into how Sela managed to escape police guards after receiving a summons to a nonexistent court hearing in Tel Aviv.
The ensuing manhunt - the largest criminal manhunt in Israel's history - has cost the public more than NIS 4 million, and Sela's escape has alarmed women throughout the country who fear the serial rapist could strike again.
"Everything is open before you, you are permitted to do everything that you need to in order to carry out your work," Dichter told the commission, headed by Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Yaron at its opening session late Sunday afternoon, held in Dichter's Tel Aviv office. "I need this report. The police need this report. The nation wants and is awaiting this report," Dichter said.
In the commission's mandate, the minister requested that the members "test all of the implications of my instructions to transfer the entire role of detention and transporting prisoners to the Israel Prisons Service."
This request referred to an issue close to Dichter's heart, and one that he noted in his first-ever press conference as minister: giving the IPS sole jurisdiction over prisoners, both criminal and security.
At the first session, the commission members built preliminary timetables for their investigation, including locations that they will visit and lists of people they will call to testify.
Testimony began at that first session with Tel Aviv Central Investigative Unit commander Asst.-Cmdr. Dan Avimeir and Ch.-Supt. Moni Meshulam, the CIU detective who is investigating the circumstances behind the escape.
On Monday, the commission members were expected to visit Eshel Prison in Beersheba, where Sela spent the last five years. The commission will meet with the head of the Israel Prisons Service's Southern Bloc, Deputy Warden Avi Vaknin, Eshel Prison Commander Deputy Warden Yossi Mikdash and other IPS officers.
Among the officers they were to meet was IPS Security head Deputy Warden Miki Halfon, who was originally slated to be the IPS representative to the Yaron Commission, but was replaced hours before its first session.
Also on Sunday, police investigators confirmed that due to a mistake by a court secretary, Sela was in fact scheduled for a hearing at the Tel Aviv Labor Court on Friday - a day on which hearings are not held. Initial evidence indicated the secretary realized the mistake after printing out the summons and canceled the appointment, but that the summons had already been sent.
Courts Administration spokeswoman Rivka Aharoni said Sunday that the Prisons Service should have noticed that the summons was incomplete and phoned the court, at which point they would have been informed that the summons was a mistake.
A second embarrassing detail was reported by Channel 1 late Sunday night - the Prisoner Escort Unit that was responsible for Sela when he escaped had already been cited for corruption and bad management.
According to the report, 15 policemen in the unit are under investigation for allegedly running - together with known criminals - a "pirate bank," and as early as eight weeks ago, Tel Aviv District Commander Cmdr. David Tzur had ordered the unit's commander to leave his position. But two months later, the unit is facing harsh criticism for its performance on Friday, and the commander remains in place.
At least 10 prisoners have escaped custody in 2006, and Tel Aviv has already had at least two recent cases in which suspects have fled police detention, although in both earlier cases, the suspects were apprehended a short time later.
Meanwhile, in the second false alarm in 24 hours, a Tel Aviv resident's Sunday evening sighting of escaped serial rapist Benny Sela in the city's Hadar Yosef neighborhood later turned out to be mistaken.
The false lead came as police said that while they believed that he was still in the Tel Aviv area, they were at a loss as to Sela's whereabouts.
In the early afternoon, Karadi held yet another situation assessment with police officers in the Tel Aviv District on Sunday afternoon as almost 2,000 police and Border Police officers from around the country continued their searches for the 34-year-old convict.
Following that meeting, Karadi said that police believed that Sela acted alone, and was not aided by anyone in his spectacular Friday morning escape. The top cop added that while reports of Sela have come in to police hotlines from all corner of the country, police believed that he was still in the vicinity of Tel Aviv, which was his hunting grounds during his rape spree throughout the nineties.
Sela, who was, until his Friday morning escape, serving a 35-year and nine-month sentence in Eshel Prison, was convicted in 2000 of sexually assaulting 14 women in the Tel Aviv area.
Police suspect that Sela was actually involved in almost 40 sexual assaults. While police detectives continued to reiterate their belief that Sela remained in the Tel Aviv area, police were led on two chases Sunday - and while one of them was proven to be a wild goose hunt, police have yet to confirm that a sighting of a suspicious man near Ashkelon was not in fact the first sighting of Sela since Friday morning.
Police revealed early Sunday afternoon that at around 9:30 in the morning they had received report from a resident of Ashkelon who claimed to have picked up a hitchhiker matching Sela's description.
The man said that he picked up the hitchhiker at around 2 a.m. near the Nitzan Junctiton, but only when watching the morning news noticed the likeness between his passenger and the serial rapist.
Police said that they were checking the citizen's story "with the greatest possible seriousness" and dispatched forces to comb Ashkelon for clues. Large numbers of police reinforced by municipal inspectors flocked to the Ashkelon area and spent the afternoon searching for additional clues.
Police also instructed taxi cab drivers and private security companies to tell their employees to exercise extra alertness, distributing Sela's picture.
The Lachish Subdistrict also told citizens to report any suspicious movement by people similar to Sela. "But we also emphasize that this is a complaint that is still being checked, and that we must prevent panic in the public."
While police were still trying to confirm the veracity of the Ashkelon sighting, they managed to establish that a second reported sighting was a false call, after locating a man who a cab driver had believed was Sela.
On Sunday morning, police were contacted by a taxi driver who said that he had driven a man similar to Sela in the area of the Beit Lid Junction, located on the old coastal road near Netanya. The cab driver said that a tired, hungry-looking man wearing blue sweatpants with white stripes on the side, a white T-shirt and was holding sandals, took a ride in his taxi.
The cab driver told police that when he became suspicious that the passenger was the escaped rapist, Sela exited the vehicle and fled. Police ordered residents in the Netanya area to be on alert for Sela, but later located the man and confirmed that he was not the feared convict.
By STEVEN ERLANGER
New York Times - November 24, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/24/world/middleeast/24cnd-mideast.html?hp&ex=1164430800&en=99d0173c8589cf02&ei=5094&partner=homepage
JERUSALEM, Nov. 24 — After another surge of violence in and around the Gaza Strip over the last month, Israel and the Palestinians moved gingerly today toward reinstituting the often-broken cease-fire between them.
In Gaza, Prime Minister Ismail Haniya of Hamas confirmed the offer of Palestinian factions to halt their rocket fire into Israel in return for Israel ending its military operations in both the West Bank and Gaza. "The ball is now in the Israeli court," Mr. Haniya told reporters after Friday prayers.
The factions making the overture included Islamic Jihad, which has previously rejected any cease-fire with Israel.
Israel called the offer a media presentation, but said the government was open to a more serious, formal proposal. "Israel would respond favorably to a full cease-fire in the Gaza Strip on both sides," said Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. "We want to see quiet in the Gaza Strip. If there is a formal proposal, we'll respond."
Ms. Eisin, in a telephone interview, said the issue was not about timing. "It's not a question of, `You go first,' " she said. "It's a question of, `What are we talking about?' " A halt to all Israeli military operations in return only for a halt to rockets would be unacceptable, she said, noting that the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. of Fatah has been trying to coordinate a cease-fire.
On Thursday night in Gaza, Mr. Abbas said that since the summer, Palestinians are "victims of a barbaric Israeli offensive that has left more than 400 dead and 1,500 wounded while thousands of homes have been destroyed." But he added: "All that on the pretext of homemade rocket fire, and unfortunately we are giving them such a pretext."
In fact, Israel reentered Gaza in late June in response to the capture of a soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, by Palestinian militants including Hamas members. Hamas said that they were responding to Israeli shelling that killed civilians; the shelling was in response to rocket fire. Since Israel pulled its settlers and troops out of Gaza in September 2005, at least 1,100 rockets have been fired from Gaza, five of them today, and four Israelis have died — two of them in the last 10 days.
Mr. Abbas, aided by Egypt, is negotiating with Hamas over a national-unity government that could meet international conditions and end an international freeze on direct budget aid, as well as Israel's withholding of tax and duties collected on behalf of the Palestinians. But both sides accuse one another of creating new obstacles, and Hamas does not want to give up key portfolios like the Interior Ministry, arguing that it was elected freely to run the Palestinian Authority in voting in January.
The government is also held up by disagreements over the release of Corporal Shalit and different Palestinian demands about the number of Palestinian prisoners to be exchanged in return. Israel wants the corporal back before releasing prisoners. These issues are also delaying the prospect of a meeting between Mr. Olmert and Mr. Abbas.
The United States secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, is expected to make an unscheduled visit here to see both men after her trip with President Bush to Jordan next week to meet Iraqi officials and Jordan's King Abdullah. The United States is eager to break the current violent stalemate and at least get Mr. Olmert and Mr. Abbas talking again.
Amid the negotiating, the shooting continued today, with Israeli troops in Gaza killing two Palestinians in Beit Lahiya, including a militant who also served as a cameraman for Hamas's military wing. A 10-year-old boy, Abdel Aziz Salman, died from gunshot wounds to the chest. Palestinians said he was hit by an Israeli sniper, while the Israeli army said its troops in Beit Lahiya had no knowledge of the boy's death.
Two Israeli soldiers were lightly wounded when their armored vehicle drove over an explosive device.
But what captivated Israelis today was a more classic police drama — a manhunt for a convicted serial rapist who escaped from police custody at a Tel Aviv court. The search for Benny Sela, 35, involved helicopters and the border police. Mr. Sela's prison trousers were found in a park, and he was reported to have changed somehow into a pair of jeans.
Strangely, the court to which Mr. Sela was being brought is normally closed on Fridays, and police said they were investigating why he had been removed from prison in the first place.
Tel Aviv women: More angry than
scared
By Haviv Rettig
THE JERUSALEM POST - Nov. 27, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1162378488091&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
While Police Insp.-Gen. Moshe Karadi said Sunday that escaped serial rapist Benny Sela was probably in Tel Aviv, local women interviewed sounded more angry at perceived police incompetence than fearful for their safety, despite the overwhelming media frenzy surrounding the incident.
"I don't want to sound blas about the security of women," said "B," who lives near Sderot Rothschild in south-central Tel Aviv, "but I don't think all this police and army going out to find him makes me feel more secure as a woman."
"The problem is bigger than just this one manhunt. The police don't help me feel safe. I don't trust them to take care of the greater problem of violence against women," she said.
Indeed, despite the nation's biggest ever criminal manhunt that followed Sela's escape Friday morning, city residents reported that their daily activities were unaffected.
Miriel was working in a store near Ichilov Hospital when Sela escaped from the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court parking lot across the street.
"Customers came in and told us what happened, but if people hadn't told me, I wouldn't have noticed," she told The Jerusalem Post. "It's something to wonder at, that this event took up as much media bandwidth as the fighting in Gaza." After all, she said, "I don't think anybody stayed home on Saturday or Sunday because of Benny Sela."
While Miriel admitted she "walked home quickly yesterday, which I don't usually do," she insisted her fears were caused more by the fact that the police could make such a "mistake," and she's certain the force, "if only to clear its name, will do its utmost to catch him, and will bring in other security forces. I'm sure - I hope - that the maximum is being done."
But not all those who spoke to the Post were as willing as Miriel to entrust their safety to law enforcement authorities.
"The first time I heard Benny Sela had escaped, my dad was in the car," said Sharon, who frequents the area, although she lives in Givatayim. "He said to me, 'Sharon, be careful.' But I told him I can deal with it. I take karate."
Sela's escape demonstrated why "all women need to learn karate," she said, since "these guys must become scared of us, and not the other way around."
Sharon said the escape should provide a valuable lesson. Sela is "just a criminal celebrity," she said. "There are criminals who aren't psychotic and who live next to us and stand near us at the supermarket, and we don't make noise about it."
The media hysteria, she said, was distracting police - and society in general - from dealing with the usual criminals, those who, for example, abuse their children on a regular basis.
Sharon was not the only woman who told the Post that Friday's escape raised concerns far broader than the momentary threat posed by a particular criminal.
"Benny Sela's escape is the nightmare of every woman," said Rachel, who lives in the club district of central Tel Aviv, "but the nightmare doesn't end when he's caught, because as we all know there are hundreds more out there like him."
Instead the fear begins with less violent phenomena, she said, from men "who catcall at a girl to make her uncomfortable" to those who "beat their wives. A violent rapist," she said, "is just the most extreme example of this problem in Israeli society."
So what's the cause of the problem?
"I don't know if it's the military machismo or Arab pride that's rubbed off, but women as a whole are treated as second-class," Rachel said. "Once a woman is not an equal, it's just a matter of degree. It's a slippery slope to violence and abuse, and eventually to rape."
In Rachel's estimation, Sela's escape may have an unexpected benefit if it encourages "an awakening in the educational system and the social leadership in this country to a much more widespread problem, the value of women."
B agreed, expressing a feeling shared by everyone interviewed for this article. "There must be a change in the attitude of society toward women," she said.
So while rumors circulated that the price of pepper spray in Tel Aviv had risen and the media was awash with the testimony of terrified adult women choosing to sleep in their parents' homes, conversations with women in central Tel Aviv (all of them conducted after dark) revealed a far different reality
As Rachel turned down a dark Tel Aviv side street she shouted back, "I'm more frightened of an incompetent police force than of some escaped street scum."
Manhunt for fugitive rapist costing State
millions
By Gad Lior
Ynet News - November 27, 2006
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3332968,00.html
Special funds allocated to cover cost of fuel, overtime, helicopters, advanced tracking devices in search for escaped convict
The first three days of the manhunt for fugitive serial rapist Benny Sela have cost the country some NIS 15 million (USD 3.5 million), according to police and Finance Ministry estimates.
Thousands of officers were summoned to conduct the search for the escaped convict, costing authorities millions in overtime; additional funds were allocated toward fuel for the motorized vehicles used in the chase, helicopters and advanced tracking devices.
In general, IDF and Israel Police request a budget extension for such unexpected expenses, and the Finance Ministry tends to grant them at least partial funding.
The fact that the search is being conducted toward the end of the year will make it difficult for the police to allocate additional funds for the search, and therefore it appears that the State will be forced to cover the costs.
Israel Panicked About Rapist on the
Run
A convicted serial rapist is striking fear into a city that should have been enjoying a new calm.
By Michael Hastings and Joanna Chen
Newsweek - December 2, 2006
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16006188/site/newsweek/
Dec. 2, 2006 - The current wave of terror sweeping Israel has nothing to do with suicide bombers or rocket attacks, but the dumbfounding escape of convicted serial rapist Benny Sela. The 35-year old escaped police custody in Tel Aviv on Nov. 24, and his disappearance immediately plunged the city into a state of near panic. He's now the target of the largest manhunt in Israel's history: 2,000 police officers have been called in from across the country, along with teams of sniffing dogs, surveillance helicopters, female undercover units and some 8,000 volunteers.
There have been more than 500 reported sightings of Sela, and Israeli authorities say a hotline dedicated to Sela's capture is receiving between 1,500 and 2,000 phone calls a day. Posters of his mug shot have been plastered in most major cities, and the airwaves have been dominated by Sela fever. One radio show was dedicated just to callers who had been mistaken for Sela themselves. (A number of Sela look-alikes have been arrested.) "He's caused a lot of panic in a lot of Tel Aviv neighborhoods," says Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesperson for the Israeli National Police. "Taking into account his pattern of behavior, he is obviously capable of attacking again."
The pressure for police to catch Sela is intense. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison after being convicted in 2000 of raping 14 women, half of whom were teenagers. His hunting ground was Tel Aviv: He would break into apartments in the early morning, rape the women, force them to shower, then flee, taking the linens and other evidence with him. At least three times he videotaped his crime. While in prison, he sent letters to his victims that detailed his crimes and asked for forgiveness.
Adding to the pressure on police is the embarrassing way Sela escaped: he was taken to a courthouse in Tel Aviv on a Friday morning because of a clerical error (courts aren't open on Friday; authorities say a secretary meant to ask for his file, not the criminal himself). With only two guards watching him—one was reportedly talking on a cell phone—Sela managed to leap over the courthouse walls. A later investigation found his shackles weren't buckled properly. Public Security Minister Avi Dichter hinted to the Israeli press last week that senior police and Prisons Service officials could pay the price for Sela's escape. "The Israel Police and the Prisons Service will undergo the necessary revolutions to make them worthy of the people of Israel. That is my mission as the minister responsible, that is the mandate placed in my hands by the people and the prime minister."
The sad irony: the public had reason to relax, given the Palestinian ceasefire agreement put into place last week to bring at least temporary quiet after years of war. "I've started locking the windows and door all the time, even when I'm at home," says Denise Abutbul, a mother of three who lives in a Tel Aviv suburb. "The first night, [my kids and I] slept curled up together in the same bed, I was so scared. I work in Sderot and, to tell you the truth, Benny Sela on the loose scares me much more than any Kassam rockets landing in Sderot."
According to the head of security in a village north of Tel Aviv, even the police are "freaked out." This official, who asked not to be named discussing an ongoing investigation, says he was called to a late-night meeting last week where he was warned that Sela "may show up in the guise of someone looking to settle in the area, perhaps to rent a house, or just look for work." Authorities say Sela has the skills to live outdoors for long stretches of time, and some have said that he'll try to get on a yacht out of the country. The last confirmed sighting, says Rosenfeld, the police spokesman, was the day Sela escaped: a resident saw him changing, and police later found the pants he'd worn in prison.
By Jonathan Lis and Roni Singer-Herut
Haaretz - December 3, 2006
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/795371.html
Senior police officers believe that escaped rapist Benny Sela is currently in the Sharon region, based on what they consider credible testimony from several people who claim to have seen him.
Police officials explained that all of these witnesses' reports included details about Sela's behavior and speech that the police know to be true, but which are not known to the general public. As a result, police will concentrate their manhunt in this area - though one senior officer admitted that the rapist could well have left it by now.
The police also recently obtained their first intelligence information about Sela since the rapist escaped nine days ago. This information is not sufficient to pinpoint Sela's location, police officials said, but it does increase the prospects of catching him.
To date, some 2,000 policemen have been participating in the hunt for Sela, at a cost of about NIS 100,000 per day. Major General David Tzur, commander of the police's Tel Aviv District, has said in closed meetings over the last few days that about a third of this manpower would be sufficient, but that Police Commissioner Moshe Karadi had ordered him to use every available individual to show the public that the police were taking the manhunt seriously and thereby help restore the public's faith.
The Yaron Committee continued its investigation into Sela's escape on Friday by hearing testimony from Tzur about the various police failures that enabled the prisoner to flee, and about the generally poor performance of the Tel Aviv District's prisoner escort service, which has allowed four prisoners to escape in the last year. Karadi and Israel Prisons Service Commissioner Ya'akov Ganot will testify before the committee on Sunday or Tuesday.
Karadi: Ease with which rapist Sela escaped 'embarrassing'
Earlier Saturday, Karadi said that despite ongoing searches, police do not know Sela's whereabouts. In an interview with Israel Radio, Karadi said "police are conducting searches in places where he is likely to be located."
Karadi added that "it was embarrassing to see the intolerable ease with which Sela was able to flee from the police escorting him."
"This is an unpleasant failure," he said.
Karadi announced Friday that the number of police forces taking part in the Tel Aviv hunt for escaped serial rapist Benny Sela will not change in the coming days.
Karadi also said that in addition to the police forces, thousands of volunteers would join the manhunt over the weekend. Last week, Tel Aviv police were reinforced with 1,000 police officers from other districts.
By Rebecca Anna Stoil
THE JERUSALEM POST - Dec. 5, 2006
Two days before the Yaron Commission probing the escape of serial rapist Benny Sela was set to deliver its warnings to police and Israel Prisons Service officers who might be injured by their findings, the heads of both organizations were under the microscope Tuesday, as Insp.-Gen. Moshe Karadi and IPS Chief Warden Yaakov Ganot appeared to offer testimony.
The commission - whose proceedings have been kept under tight-lipped guard since it began to operate a week ago Sunday - is expected to come down strong against lower and mid-level police officers, particularly in the Tel Aviv District, for a series of errors that enabled Sela's escape.
Hours after the testimony, a Channel 10 report revealed that Tel Aviv District Chief Cmdr. David Tzur had known about critical failures in his district's prisoner escort unit as early as February - ten months before Sela's escape.
Tzur allegedly visited both the magistrate's court from which Sela escaped as well as the prisoner escort unit, and while documentation noted that serious manpower issues would prevent the unit from carrying out assignments, allegedly did nothing to correct the situation.
Sela, in fact, was the fourth prisoner this year alone to escape from the Tel Aviv District's prisoner escort unit.
Twenty years after being attacked, serial rapist's first victim finally speaks out about her ordeal
By Ariela Ringel Hoffman
YNet News - December 6, 2006
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3336755,00.html
The pain and the anger finally made their appearance fifteen years later, in late 2000, when serial rapist Benny Sela was apprehended.
"When I saw him for the first time on television, with the big jacket covering his entire head, I burst out crying," says Yael (not her real name). "Even though I couldn't see his face, I said to my husband: `That's him. That's Benny Selach. That's the man who raped me.'"
"It was a terrible period," she reports. "I couldn't fall asleep at night; I couldn't calm down during the day. I was running on automatic. It was even more horrible than the months after the rape itself. When I suddenly realized that he was the serial rapist, I didn't know what was happening to me. I was a broken person, miserable."
Yael was a 14 year old boarder on Kibbutz Shaar HaGolan when Benny Sela, then known as Benny Selach, locked her in a bomb shelter behind the swimming pool. Over the next two days, he beat her, tore her clothes, stabbed her with a pocketknife, and raped her repeatedly.
Authorities believe that Yael was Sela's first victim. Two weeks after the rape, she left the kibbutz and returned home to Hadera. Now, 20 years later, she offers Yedioth Ahronoth her first interview.
Rape in a bomb shelter
Yael, tall and pretty with blue eyes and blonde hair, was born and raised in Hadera. When she finished elementary school, she begged her parents to let her go live on a kibbutz. Although her mother vehemently opposed the move, her father let Yael have her way.
Thus, in 1985, Yael found herself in Shaar HaGolan. She was assigned to a group of boarders, including Benny Selach, then 15.
Coincidentally, H. and P., Yael's adoptive parents, had been Selach's adoptive parents two years earlier. "Due to reasons that had nothing to do with him," H. insists, "he switched to another adoptive family."
Yael and Selach were part of the same crowd. "We would go around a lot, sometimes even just the two of us," she recalls. "I wasn't afraid of him. He was small and skinny. I was tall and strong, and when he would attack me, I would give it back to him."
Five months after her arrival at the kibbutz, Selach dragged her to the bomb shelter. It was a Friday, and the group of boarders was scheduled to leave on a two day hike. Yael was standing with her knapsack, when Selach jumped on her and pushed her to the ground.
"He told me that he wants to show me something and that I should come with him," she recounts. "There was no indication of what was going to happen, just another one of his pranks."
They passed the kibbutz pool and reached the shelter. Selach opened the heavy iron door, shut it closed behind them, and pushed Yael down the stairs.
"'Go down; go down already,' he shouted at me," Yael continues. "I yelled back at him, and then he yelled: `Shut your mouth.' And he started kicking me. I was shocked. He screamed: `Take your clothes off.' And I suddenly realized that it was serious.
"He took a small pocketknife out of his pocket and stabbed me with it in my hand. `If you don't shut up,' he yelled, `I'll kill you.'
"He threw me to the ground, kicked me in the stomach, and tore my blouse. He was small and skinny, and I always thought that I was stronger than him. But when he went crazy, I couldn't do anything.
"He raped me and hit me, and I think that at this stage, I lost consciousness. What I do remember from there, afterwards, are only fragments of images. I remember him leaving and coming back, myself opening my eyes and seeing him on top of me, his face on my face, his open mouth, and his teeth. He raped me again and again.
"On Shabbat, approaching evening, when he wasn't in the shelter, I dragged myself up the steps. I discovered that he hadn't locked the door, and I went out of there.
"Near the dining room, he caught me. `If you open your mouth,' he said to me, `I'll kill you.'"
Silence in the kibbutz
When Yael reached her adoptive parents' home, only P., the father, was home. He insisted that Yael wait and speak to his wife H.
"When she returned, I told her. I was bruised and frightened." Yael states. "She said to me. `What are these stories? Come on, really. What nonsense.'"
H. refused to believe Yael's accusations, and Sela continued to threaten to kill her. No one else asked any questions, and two weeks later, Yael quietly left the kibbutz.
The bad years
Back in Hadera, Yael told her father but not her mother about the rape. Meanwhile, she graduated high school and enlisted in the army. At some point, she underwent some psychological counseling.
Around 15 years ago, after completing her army service, Yael met a young paratrooper officer from Jerusalem.
"Already during the first date, she told me the story," he recalls. "'You should know,' she said to me, `that I was raped, that I'm not exactly normal.'"
But he was not discouraged. The couple eventually got married, moved back to Hadera, and had three children.
"He needed to be very patient with me," Yael admits. "There were instances when in certain situations, everything would come back to me, when I would suddenly go out of my mind."
Even today, Yael's adoptive parents claim that she never told them anything. In fact, according to H., the adoptive mother, they only remember Yael herself "more or less."
Yael confesses that it has taken her years to learn not to feel shame over the incident and to understand that it was not her fault.
"Those that are close to me know the story," Yael says. "I don't go into all the details, but I told people what happened to me, so they can understand me better.
"I'm angry that I was silent, that I gave up. How could I not settle accounts with him? How did I agree to have them say in the kibbutz that there wasn't a rape, (rather than) stopping this madness at that point?
"It took me months to recover from it, to get back to myself, and now it's coming again. Out of the blue, my sister calls me and says to me: `I heard on the radio that Benny Sela escaped.'
"I'm not scared of him; I'm scared of the silence."
Gal-On: Sela arrest was 'media circus'
Rebecca Anna Stoil
THE JERUSALEM POST - December 8, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1164881852573&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
There was no mistaking the smiles on the faces of police officers in the Northern District on Friday night after their successful pursuit of Benny Sela won them the honor of ending Israel's biggest ever manhunt.
But while the officers celebrated and hoped positive headlines would help the public forget the chain of failures revealed by the Yaron Commission's report on Thursday, criticism of the police continued as Meretz MK Zehava Gal-On blasted their handling of Sela's rearrest.
"Nothing could be more exciting than catching this guy," St.-Sgt. Aasef Deeb, one of the officers who nabbed Sela on Friday evening, told Israel Radio.
Deeb's enthusiasm was echoed by his boss, Northern District Cmdr. Dan Ronen, who spared no words in complimenting the men and women under his command. "We did an excellent, outstanding job," he said.
Ronen's boss, Insp.-Gen. Moshe Karadi, also took the time to say, "We are happy the Benny Sela is in the hands of the Israel Police."
Even Karadi's boss, Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter, who has recently expressed strong public criticism of the force, changed his tone to wax enthusiastic.
"I've seen the fire in their eyes," he said. "The same police officers who people had complained about, and the ones who no one had ever heard of."
But not everybody was in such a beneficent mood.
Gal-On demanded on Saturday that Dichter find out who was behind the "tasteless media circus surrounding the police capture of [Benny Sela]." Sela was shown on camera, hunched over and exhausted, being led by a team of detectives from the Tel Aviv Central Investigative Unit.
Faced with flash bulbs and sound booms, and in response to calls from the representatives of the press, a detectives seemed to force Sela to stand straight - for a second - as the prisoner cried out in pain. Sela has since complained that the detectives beat him, braking his ribs.
Gal-On said his escape still represented a serious failure on the part of the police, who shouldn't have used his capture to "degrade [Sela], no matter how loathsome he is."
Karadi told Israel Radio he intended to look into the reports that police paraded Sela in front of the media in an inappropriate manner.
By Rebecca Anna Stoil
The Jerusalem Post - December 8, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1164881851795&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
While police scramble to understand the details of Tel Aviv serial rapist Benny Sela's escape, Sela himself can be assured of one immediate result of the furor surrounding his escape and recapture - his living conditions have taken a downward swing in comparison with his previous residence in Eshel Prison.
Sela, as of 3 a.m. Saturday morning, has returned to being a resident of the Sharon area, but this time as a prisoner in the ultra-high security isolation wing of Rimmonim Prison.
The prison is home to the National Isolation Unit, a ward consisting of six cells, each of which is completely isolated from its neighbors.
Its present and past residents are a veritable who's who of the Israeli crime scene.
Its newest inhabitant - prior to Sela - was Yigal Amir, prime minister Yitzhak Rabin's murderer, who was moved there on Friday from Ayalon Prison where he has been held for years.
Francois Abutbul of the notorious crime family is another resident of the infamous "neighborhood," which was also inhabited by crime kingpin Ze'ev Rosenstein prior to his extradition to a prison in the United States.
Prisoners have only one hour each day outside their cells, in the yard next to the ward. But even during their time in the yard, each prisoner is entirely alone. Prisoners in this cell block have no contact with other prisoners.
This may work in Sela's favor as he was allegedly stabbed twice in the back by fellow prisoners at Eshel Prison.
Although prison officials deny that such an incident occurred, scars from the stabbings were used to identify Sela at the Nahariya Police Station on Friday night.
Sela said he fled because he had been repeatedly stabbed and abused in jail, claiming that prior to his flight he left a letter to Amos Yaron explaining that abuse was the reason behind his escape.
Israel Prison Service (IPS) officials tacked on additional restrictions as well, including allowing visits only by immediate family members and even then mandating that Sela be separated from his visitors by a divider.
He will be allowed one half-hour phone call per day and when he is taken out of the prison for hearings, he will be accompanied by the IPS's heavily-armed Nachshon Unit, whose sole specialization is in transporting dangerous prisoners.
By Sharon Roffe-Ofir
YNet News - December 9, 2006
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3337653,00.html
Fugitive
serial rapist Benny Sela was nabbed at the entrance to the northern city
of Nahariya on Friday evening, two weeks after escaping from police custody
in Tel Aviv en route to a mistaken court hearing.
Large police forces poured on the coastal city after residents reported spotting the convicted rapist. Police said Sela, who was convicted of 14 counts of rape and sexual assault and sentenced to 35 years in jail, was riding a stolen car upon his arrest.
One of Sela's relatives tipped police about the rapist's whereabouts, reporting that Sela had visited him and told him he is heading north. The relative also gave police details about the car that Sela was driving.
Police said Sela, who was arrested near Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot, resisted arrest and ran away from the checkpoint.
Police officers chased him and handcuffed him after he tried to con them by giving an Arab name.
But convinced they had arrested the rapist, officers insisted on taking him to the Nahariya police station to check his identity.
Sela told reporters at the Nahariya police station that he escaped because he had been repeatedly beaten by officers who were guarding him.
Police chief meets rapist
Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert contacted Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter and
Police Chief Moshe Karadi to congratulate them for Sela's arrest.
Upon Sela's arrest Karadi rushed to Nahariya from a Tel Aviv hotel where he had planned to spend the weekend with a handful of senior officers and was said to have met the serial rapist.
A commission set up by Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter to probe the humiliating blunder pointed to serious police shortcomings that contributed to Sela's escape.
On Friday afternoon police received reports from citizens who said they had spotted Sela driving a Honda Civic in Tiberias.
A police inspection of the car's plate number revealed that the car had been reported stolen on Friday morning.
Shortly before Sela's arrest at 19.50, a police helicopter and several cruisers were called to Nes Ziona in the center of the country after receiving a call from a resident claiming he had seen a man who looks similar to the rapist.
The arrest could reinstate public confidence in the Israel Police following a wave of criticism over Sela's easy escape from custody outside a courthouse.
Avi Cohen contributed to this report
Serial rapist Sela nabbed near Nahariya thanks
to civilian tips
By Rebecca Anna Stoil
THE JERUSALEM POST - December 10, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1164881857062&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
After two weeks on the lam, Benny Sela was back in jail Saturday morning following a capture that Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter described as better than anything in the movies.
Sela was caught by police just south of Nahariya on Friday evening after a series of civilian tips helped police pinpoint the elusive escapee. His rearrest came two weeks and some 12 hours after he fled police custody at the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court on November 24.
Since his escape, police responded to hundreds of civilian tips and suspected sightings from Ashkelon to Safed.
Although they were not aware of it at the time, police received their first real lead following a break-in Thursday night. A Pardess Hanna resident reported that his house had been broken into earlier that day and that the thief had stolen his car keys and made off with his white Honda Civic.
In the early afternoon, police in the North received multiple reports of a man similar to Sela driving a white Honda near the Mount of Beatitudes, just north of Lake Kinneret.
Less than an hour later, an off-duty soldier on leave at her home at Kibbutz Kinneret reported to her kibbutz's security director - and then to police - that a man fitting Sela's description had stopped her on the kibbutz to ask how to get to the volunteers' houses.
The man, she said, had covered his face with his hand and had acted suspiciously. At one point he requested that she get into his car to show him the way to the building, but the young woman refused.
Viewing the kibbutz's security tapes, kibbutz security director Yossi Tzur found an image of the suspicious vehicle driving in through the gate. Police soon realized that the car was stolen and that the driver of the vehicle was reminiscent of the fugitive.
Police set up roadblocks throughout the Amakim Subdistrict, stretching from the Jordanian border to Wadi Ara in the west, but somehow Sela managed to evade the searchers.
His next known appearance was at Nesher, just outside of Haifa, about four hours after he was seen at the kibbutz. Sela allegedly showed up at the doorstep of family members, holding a bouquet of flowers and asking for permission to shower and eat at the family's house.
The father of the family shut the door in Sela's face, and once he had left, alerted police that he had seen Sela and that he was driving a white vehicle.
The family later released a statement clarifying that they had cooperated with the police "from the moment Sela contacted [them]. We informed the police immediately, like any good citizen would."
They added that they had not been in touch with Sela for several years and that should they be awarded the prize money offered to citizens who assist in Sela's arrest, they would donate it to a charity for victims of rape.
Following the family's tip, police set up roadblocks along the roads leading north out of Haifa.
Police St.-Sgt. Aasef Deeb and his partner had set up one of those roadblocks on Route 4 near the Regba shopping center just south of Nahariya when they noticed a vehicle that had stopped on the shoulder approximately 80 meters before the checkpoint and turned off its lights.
When the two approached the vehicle, a man ran out of the car. Even after he was caught, the suspect allegedly continued to struggle with the policemen until they handcuffed him.
The prisoner refused to talk, and according to Deeb, merely cried. Later, he claimed to be an Arab named Usama and said he did not understand Hebrew. In the darkness, the police officers said, it was impossible to tell if their prisoner, who reportedly covered his face with his hands, was Sela or not.
Only after arriving at the Nahariya police station did the station's youth crimes officer identify the man as Benny Sela.
Reports of Sela's rearrest interrupted the regularly scheduled evening news on the country's major television stations and Ch.-Supt. Avi Edry, spokesman for the Israel Police's Northern District, sent out a statement telling journalists: "I'm dying to deliver the message that Benny Sela is in our hands, but there is a gag order that we are trying to remove this very minute after the suspect's identity was finally confirmed."
In the meantime, police officers fingerprinted the suspect and sent the tests to the forensics labs at national police headquarters in Jerusalem to confirm his identity.
Police Insp.-Gen. Moshe Karadi was with Northern District chief Cmdr. Dan Ronen and station commanders from across the country when he was notified that a suspect had been apprehended by police in Nahariya. While en route to the scene, he reportedly received a message saying: "You can make a toast now. Benny Sela has been caught."
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert spoke to both Karadi and Dichter, congratulating them on Sela's rearrest.
"We are all breathing easier," Karadi said. "The police, but mostly the public, were worried after two weeks of searches."
"We always knew that alert citizens would be what would help us capture Sela, like any other criminal," he said.
"Even if you took a director to stage it, I doubt whether they could have found a better group of people than those who caught him," added an elated Dichter Friday night. ·
From escape to recapture - Benny Sela on the
run
By Rebecca Anna Stoil
THE JERUSALEM POST - December 10, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1164881857327&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Thursday evening, November 23:
Convicted serial rapist Benny Sela is transferred from Eshel Prison, where he is serving a 35-year, nine-month sentence for multiple counts of rape and sexual assault, to Nitzan Detention facility in advance of an alleged court date in Tel Aviv Friday morning.
Friday morning, November 24 (8:10):
Sela is handed over to the custody of two Tel Aviv District policemen from the prisoners' transport unit.
· 8:30:
The police officers arrive with Sela at the Labor Court only to discover that the court does not hold hearings on Friday, and take him to the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court, where he sprints past a police officer, scales a wall and then jumps to freedom.
· 8:55:
Police declare Sela to be an escaped prisoner.
· 11:00
: Police confirm reports that they have found Sela's prison-issue pants after concerned citizens alert them to a central Tel Aviv park, where they have seen a man changing clothes.
· Sunday, November 26:
As searches continue, the Yaron Commission begins its work investigating how Sela managed to escape.
On the same day, police receive a strong lead in the late evening, when a resident of the Tel Mond area says that he recognized Sela biking through the fields in Ein Sarid. The man, who says that Sela, prior to his arrest, had asked to rent an apartment from him, tells police that when he tried to approach the bicyclist, the suspect fled. Police still believe that this was in fact an actual sighting of Sela.
· Tuesday, November 28:
Police flock to a Ramat Gan industrial zone only to find that a reported sighting of serial rapist Benny Sela turned out to be a false alarm when a motorbike's owner tried to evade a police patrol car because his registration was not accurate.
· Wednesday, November 29:
Police rush to Safed after multiple sightings seem to place the escaped rapist in the Galilee city. After a day of searching, "Sela" is revealed to be a tired and bedraggled local beggar who takes to the airwaves to request that the city's residents please stop mistaking him for the rapist.
· Monday, December 4:
A police officer claims to have seen Sela in Binyamina, wearing a parka and eating cheese. Sela's comments following his arrest suggest that this sighting was, in fact, accurate.
· Thursday, December 7:
Sela breaks in to a Pardess Hanna house, showers and shaves and steals cash, credit cards and keys to the family's car. Meanwhile, the Yaron Commission delivers its recommendations for ensuring that such an escape be prevented in the future.
· Friday December 8, 03:00
: Police suspect that Sela stole a white Honda Civic that was parked in front of the Pardes Hana house of Moshe Rozen.
· 13:00:
Police receive complaints from civilians who say that they have seen someone similar to Benny Sela driving near the Mount of Beatitudes just north of Lake Kinneret.
· 13:45
: Less than an hour later, Sela is captured on camera passing through the gate of Kibbutz Kinneret. At the kibbutz, Sela stops to ask a question of Lior Shatz, a soldier who lives at the kibbutz.
· 18:10:
- Sela shows up on the doorstep of distant family members in the Ramot Yitzhak neighborhood of Nesher, near Haifa. His family refuses to let him in, and then alerts police as soon as he leaves.
· 19:50:
Police receive the first report that the vehicle has been sighted at a checkpoint south of Nahariya, and that the driver, suspected of being Sela, has been arrested.
· 21:15:
The gag order on the investigation is lifted, allowing police to confirm that the suspect being held at the Nahariya Station is in fact Sela.
· 23:15:
Sela, looking battered and exhausted, is transferred from the Nahariya Station to the Tel Aviv District for questioning.
· Saturday, December 9, 3:00:
Sela is returned to prison - this time to the national isolation bloc at Rimmonim Prison.
By Roni Singer-Heruti, Jack Khoury and Jonathan Lis
Haaretz - December 9, 2006
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/798719.html
Serial
rapist Benny Sela, whose escape from a Tel Aviv courthouse two weeks ago
triggered a nationwide manhunt, was arrested in northern Israel on Friday
night.
After his arrest, Sela told reporters that he ran away from prison after suffering abuse and having been stabbed by other inmates, while jailers ignored his calls for help, Army Radio reported. Sela also complained he was beaten up by police after his arrest.
The Israel Prison Service and police dismissed the allegations.
Sela, 35, escaped his two-man police escort at Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court six years into a 35-year jail sentence handed down in December 1999 for the rape and sexual assault of 14 women. He scaled the high wall surrounding the courtyard where prisoners awaiting a hearing are placed, jumped over it and disappeared.
Predawn Saturday, the serial rapist was transported to an isolated cell at Rimonim Prison in the Sharon area, Army Radio reported. He was placed in solitary confinement next door to the killer of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, Yigal Amir.
Sela was questioned by Tel Aviv police overnight, as detectives sought to learn whether he had received any assistance while on the run. Police questioned Sela on suspicions of fleeing legal custody, breaking into an apartment, theft and assaulting police officers.
Sela received medical treatment upon entering Rimonim prison, and was said to have been tired, hungry and not carrying any belongings, the radio reported. He reportedly remained silent throughout his interrogation.
He will not be brought before a court for an extension of his remand, but the indictment for the fresh allegations will be submitted as he continues to serve his original sentence.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert congratulated Public Security Minister Avi Dichter and Police Commissioner Moshe Karadi for Sela's capture, the radio said.
The capture came after police received a report from one of Sela's relatives who said that the fugitive prisoner had contacted him and told him he would be heading north. The family member also gave police a description of the car in which he was traveling. The relative is a resident of Nesher, near the northern port city of Haifa.
Following the report, police set up roadblocks on main roads in the north. When police stopped the car Sela was driving on the Nahariya-Acre road, he again tried to escape. Police officers ran after him, and eventually captured him. A senior police officer said that Sela, dressed in black sweatpants and a gray shirt, was driving a white Honda that had been stolen Friday morning in Hadera.
Sela was taken to a Nahariya police station for questioning, but refused to speak to or cooperate with the police. His fingerprints were sent to a Tel Aviv police station to officially confirm his identity.
According to reports, Sela initially identified himself with an Arab name, but the officers immediately recognized him. Police officers at the scene said that he seemed to be very frightened.
Police Commissioner Moshe Karadi said Friday after arriving at the Nahariya police station that "over the past two days police received information indicating Sela is in the northern district and that is why many uniformed and undercover police were deployed across the district."
Karadi said that "in the afternoon a report came in about a stolen Honda, which according to suspicion Sela was driving." According to the commissioner, "at around 18.30 Galilee District Police were ordered to deploy checkpoints across the region, and among other places roadblocks were set up on the Acre-Nahariya highway."
by Sharon Roffe-Ophir
YNet News - Dcember 9, 2006
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3337729,00.html
After two weeks at large, recaptured rapist Benny Sela tells Ynet: `I escaped because they abused me in prison.' Convict transferred to solitary confinement at Rimonim prison where conditions of incarceration to be much more severe
Shortly after escaped serial rapist Benny Sela was caught Friday night, Ynet managed to interview him in his cell at the Nahariya Police Station. In response to a question on the motive for his escape, Sela said: "They stabbed my and abused me in prison.'
By 7:50 p.m. Friday the two-week-long manhunt ended and the most dangerous rapist in Israel's history was caught in the area of Kibbutz Lohamei Hagitaot, after a family member reported on his whereabouts to police.
Looking gaunt and shrunken, Sela explained: "On Sunday I left a letter in Binyamina by the train station in which I explained to Amos Yaron (ed.: chair of the commission of inquiry into the circumstances of Sela's escape) why I escaped."
"They beat me. Every minute an agent comes in and beats me. Tell them to let me breath," he pleaded to the Ynet reporter. "They beat me in the ribs," he added. Immediately following the conversation, Sela was taken out by Tel Aviv central district police to be interrogated.
Due to his escape, Sela will be transferred to a high security prison with a special solitary confinement ward for special prisoners.
On Saturday morning Sela arrived at the Rimonim jail, where among others convicted assassin Yigal Amir is serving his term.
Upon his arrival, Sela told his wardens: "I'm tired and hungry. I want to sleep."
The ward comprises a number of isolated cells. Each prisoner spends 23 hours in the cell and is permitted one hour in the prison yard. His hour outside is also spent alone, and he will have no contact with other prisoners. These conditions are far more severe than those he was held under previously at the Eshel prison.
Sela's visiting rights will also be reduced. He will be allowed only visits from immediate family members, with a panel separating the prisoner and his visitors. He will also be allowed only half hour per day to use the public telephone.
Friday evening, officers of the Northern District police force were smiling from ear to ear. None of them imagined they would be the ones to succeed in capturing the nation's most talked about felon. Even a few hours after his capture, the police officers found it hard to conceal their excitement, and repeatedly reconstructed the story of Sela's capture.
Head of the Nahariya police team which captured Sela, Asaaf Div, told Ynet: "We were on duty. We received reports that we were after a vehicle and we had to set up roadblocks. On route 4, the roadblock was busted through. Eighty meters from there, we identified a car pulled over on the shoulder. We approached it and saw someone running from the vehicle. Ashraf Avid, another cop who was with me, and I ran after him. We overcame him and cuffed his hands."
At this stage the officers were not yet certain that their quarry was indeed the escaped convict. More officers arrived at the scene. "He kept trying to cover his face with his hands. We couldn't say for sure that this was him. Only once we reached the station and the youth officer recognized him almost certainly, did we understand who it was that we had in hand," Div added.
Sela said at first that his name was Usama. He was positively identified at the Nahariya Police Station by his fingerprints. "It's a great feeling. You can't have a better feeling than this," Div said.
Karadi to check allegations against Sela's
captors
By JPOST.COM STAFF
Jerusalem Post - December 9, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1164881854229&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Police Chief Insp.-Gen. Moshe Karadi told Israel Radio on Saturday that he intended to look into reports that police, after capturing escaped serial rapist Benny Sela on Friday, treated the convict in a "degrading" manner.
Many journalists and spectators who gathered at the Nahariya police station, where Sela was first taken after he was caught at a police roadblock, said that police escorting the prisoner appeared to be holding Sela "on display."
Karadi said that he had not witnessed the alleged behavior, but that he would inspect pictures from the scene.
Police do not know if Sela attacked
while loose
Jerusalem Post - December 10, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1164881865345&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Police do not know for certain whether convicted serial rapist Benny Sela attacked women during his two week escape, Police Chief Insp.-Gen. Moshe Karadi said Sunday evening.
Karadi emphasized that at this point the police have not received any complaints about rape, but given that Sela has yet to cooperate with the investigation, it is impossible to rule out the possibility.
Sela's foster family: We alerted the police
Jerusalem Post - December 9, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1164881855205&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
A representative of convicted serial rapist Benny Sela's foster family in Kibbutz Nesher released a statement on Saturday morning clarifying that the family had notified the police that Sela had contacted them.
According to the statement, the family cooperated with the police "from the moment Sela contacted [them]. We informed the police immediately, like any good citizen would."
Furthermore, the statement read, the family had not been in touch with Sela for several years.
Police praised their action, saying that the tip had been one of the factors that contributed to Sela's capture.
Exclusive: What police did to serial
rapist
By Ahiya Raved
YNet News - December 10, 2006
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3338362,00.html
These
are not pictures that police would be proud of: Anonymous photographer captures
police officers humiliating Sela by grabbing him on the neck and smiling
proudly to the camera
Was serial rapist humiliated by police during interrogation? Ynet received pictures by Red Mail depicting police officers humiliating serial rapist Benny Sela soon after his arrest on Friday, two weeks after he escaped police custody on his way to a false court hearing.
Ynet inspected the pictures for graphic manipulations and found them to be genuine.
Although the pictures do not show severe physical abuse, they raise questions about the officers' professionalism and moral standards as the clearly seem to be enjoying humiliating and dominating Sela.
One
of the pictures shows two officers laying their hands on Sela's neck.
In the other picture an officer, who should not have taken part in the serial rapist's interrogation, is seen with his hand firmly placed on Sela's head as his eyes closed.
The officers in the pictures turned down a Ynet request for comments.
Northern District commander Dan Ronen appointed an officer to probet the incident.
"The District's commander was updated by the Galilee area officer about the pictures and their content, which was not known before. The District's commander ordered the immediate appointment of a officer to probe the affair. The officer will probe the officers' behavior, who photographed them, why they acted the way they did and how the pictures reached external elements and Ynet," the Northern District said in a statement.
Ynet believes the pictures were most likely taken by a policeman who photographed his colleagues. The anonymous photographer is invited to approach Ynet by Red Mail and he will be givern full credit for the pictures.
Karadi: Sela photos bad for police
By Miri Chason
YNet News - December 11, 2006
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3338672,00.html
Knesset members discuss photographs of serial rapist Benny Sela depicting officers' inappropriate treatment of prisoner following capture
Police Commissioner Moshe Karadi gave his first response Monday to photographs of captured serial rapist Benny Sela and said, "Those photographs are bad for the police."
The photos were taken by an anonymous photographer at the Nahariya Police Station's interrogation room and showed police officers humiliating Sela following his capture.
Commissioner Karadi spoke at a Knesset meeting Monday at which he arrived to participate in the discussion of Sela's capture. He clarified that if the officers had followed procedure, the entire incident would never have happened.
Regarding the photographs themselves, Karadi said, "It's impossible to determine what exactly went on by looking at still photos, but the photos don't honor anyone and will be investigated by an officer."
Dichter: Investigation needed
Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter also referred to the photographs and said, "Some of the things that happened in Nahariya should not have happened. The photographs must be investigated. It was clearly not the intention of police officials, the police commissioner, or my own, and I regret the photos."
Ynet received the photographs by Red Mail Sunday. The photos depicted police officers humiliating serial rapist Benny Sela soon after his arrest on Friday, two weeks after he escaped police custody on his way to a false court hearing.
Ynet inspected the pictures for graphic manipulations and found them to be genuine.
Tirosh: Castrate beast
Science, Technology, Culture, and Sports Minister Ophir Pines-Paz (Labor) spoke during the meeting and said that the chain of events in the Sela affair were clumsy and embarrassing.
On the other hand, MK Ronit Tirosh (Kadima) turned to Dichter and asked, "Will they castrate Benny Sela? He's a beast, not a man, he asked for it himself. I don't understand how we've suddenly become so forgiving."
Sela's mother begs that he be treated
Jerusalem Post - December 11, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1164881870877&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Mother of convicted serial rapist Benny Sela, whose escape from police custody prompted a two-week nationwide manhunt and who was arrested outside of Nahariya on Friday evening, has sent a series of impassioned letters to Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter, Israel Prison Service Chief Warden Yaakov Ganot, and the Israeli public condemning the alleged abuse against her son in prison and begging that he receive appropriate treatment.
"I am Benny Sela's mother. I don't justify his actions, but how much can a person be abused, even if he committed a crime?" Rivka Sela wrote.
Rivka argued that her son was "sick," and needed treatment. "Is there anyone who can help him, and not just laugh at him?" her letter asked.
Sela escaped from prison because the authorities had shut their eyes to the "bruises all over him," Rivka said, adding that repeated requests by her son for treatment had been ignored.
Earlier, Kadima MK Ronit Tirosh caused some surprise in the Knesset on Monday when she called publicly for Sela's castration.
In a discussion at the Knesset's Interior Committee meeting, Army Radio reported, Tirosh said that "aside from the rights of the accused, we have to protect the rights of the women. The well-being of their bodies and their lives is more important than the need to protect the rapist."
As the discussion of Sela's escape and its implications for the security establishment continued, an argument broke out between Tirosh and other participants.
"I want them to castrate him!" Tirosh shouted. "Why don't we do this? He's an animal, and he also wants to be castrated."
Dichter, who was present at the meeting, did not respond to Tirosh's comments.
However, attorney Shlomo Cohen called from across the room, "How is it that no one disagrees with the words of an Israeli teacher?" Tirosh formerly served as Deputy Director General of the Education Ministry
Four to receive reward for Sela
capture
Jerusalem Post - December 13, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1164881884755&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Four people will receive NIS 25,000 each for helping to capture escaped serial rapist Benny Sela, Army Radio reported on Wednesday.
Baruch Mazor, general manager of the Fischer Fund, said that the organization planned to divide the NIS 100,000 it had promised to whoever caught Sela among four different people who the organization felt had had a direct impact on the serial rapist's capture.
The four, Mazor announced, were Lior Shatz, the soldier from Kibbutz Kinneret who spotted Sela and reported her sighting to police; Rina Greenberg, the woman who reported the suspicious car that turned out to be the vehicle Sela had stolen; Sela's foster family, who called the police immediately after he visited them while on the run; and finally, the policemen from the Nahariya Police Station who brought Sela down in the final moments of his chase.
Mazor noted that the policemen who were involved in allowing degrading photographs of Sela to be taken after his capture would not partake of the reward. He added that some of those mentioned above had already refused the prize money, and that the organization would donate the money to other organizations which dealt with rape victims.
Meanwhile, Sela was transferred under tight security Wednesday morning to Tel Aviv's Central Investigative Unit (CIU), where he will be interrogated for the first time since his December 8 capture after two weeks on the run, Army Radio reported.
It was unknown whether Sela would release all the information he had regarding the time he spent at large. Although Sela displayed signs of willingness to share his side of the story, he demanded 100,000 NIS as a condition for revealing all the details, Ma'ariv reported.
On Tuesday, Sela gave permission to his lawyer, Dino Tzphrir Yagur, to negotiate with the media over selling the rights to his escape story.
According to Yagur, Sela needed the money to help his mother, who "has financial issues," and for funding his legal battle. Sela hoped that a news agency would be willing to pay him in return for exclusive rights to the story.
Police who humiliated Sela to stand disciplinary
trial
By Ahiya Raved
YNet News - December 13, 2006
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3339724,00.html
Police who humiliated Sela to stand disciplinary trial
Four officers who took `souvenir photos' posing with serial rapist Benny Sela after he was recaptured in Nahariya to be charged with illegal use of force, unbecoming behavior
After the Ynet expose , four Nahariya police officers who humiliated recaptured rapist Benny Sela will stand disciplinary trial.
The officers were photographed clutching Sela's throat and head and posing for the camera.
They will be charged with illegal use of force and behavior unbecoming a police officer.
'Souvenir' photos with Sela (Photo: Anonymous)
The decision to have the four stand trial was made by commander of the Northern District Police Major General Dan Ronen, who appointed an officer to probe the episode.
Police commissioner Moshe Karadi praised the decision to charge the offending officers.
"The officers' behavior is in opposition to police values, it harmed the image of the police, and it should be pulled out by the roots," Karadi said.
Rape victim recounts ordeal when Sela was
free
YNet News - December 13, 2006
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3339334,00.html
A., who was raped by escaped serial rapist, says she had no life during two weeks in which he was on the loose. In spite of humiliating pictures from investigation room, he is not the victim, she says
A. is one of the victims of escaped serial rapist Benny Sela who was caught on Friday after having escaped police custody two weelks earlier on a mistaken visit to court.
"During these two weeks I had no life," she added.
A., who is unable to forget the damage inflicted upon her by Sela, follows criticism leveled at the police over pictures published exclusively by Ynet showing police officers humiliating the serial rapist and calls on people to remember who is the real victim.
"Attention given to the police shame over the pictures is nowhere near the real transgression, which seems to be forgotten. They allowed him to escape easily, and stole two weeks of my life through their negligence," she said.
No mercy
She charged that Sela's victims couldn't sleep, go out, or be alone during the two weeks he was on the loose.
She added that although police officers misbehaved when the humiliated Sela, the public and the media should not give the incident too much attention, which seems to have eclipsed the initial blunder that led to his escape.
"I am sitting at home and going out of my mind asking how this crazy and cruel man suddenly became worthy of compassion and pity," she added.
She refuses to accept claims by Sela that he had not committed sexual offenses while on the loose, saying his sick urge is stronger than him.
"He didn't have mercy on me for a moment. He injured me for ever, my body and soul. He saw my suffering but didn't stop. It only encouraged him to continue and inflict pain ... he didn't have mercy on any of us," she said referring to the 14 women Sela was charged with raping.
Rapist's relative suspected of aiding him
By Avi Cohen
YNet News - December 13, 2006
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3339688,00.html
Woman in her 60s from Maalot suspected of having helped Benny Sela after his escape from prison. Relative summoned for questioning several times, arrested after refusing to cooperate
The Tel Aviv District Police Central Unit arrested Wednesday a relative of Benny Sela, the serial rapist who escaped from jail earlier this month and was recaptured after three weeks on the run.
The relative, a woman in her 60s from the town of Maalot, is suspected of having aided Sela after he fled prison.
The woman was summoned for questioning several times, but refused to cooperate. Eventually she was arrested by the police and questioned. After denying the allegations against her, the relative was released on bail.
Sela was taken from his cell Wednesday for interrogation at the Central Unit, but has so far refused to cooperate with his investigators. Over the last few days the rapist met with attorneys from the Public Defense, as well as with a lawyer hired by his family.
An indictment will be served against Sela in the coming days, apparently for fleeing legal custody, breaking and entering, motor vehicle theft and assaulting officers.
At the same time, the police are investigating Sela's humiliation by policemen after his capture, an incident that was caught on camera and published on Ynet.
Haaretz - December 13, 2006
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/800747.html
Police Chief Moshe Karadi on Wednesday repelled public criticism of the police over its handling of the capture of rapist Benny Sela.
"It's not some other police force, these are the same police officers who risked their lives for the notheren residents [of Israel] during the 33 days of war, and the same police who for six years have been under a barrage of Qassam rockets in Sderot," Karadi said.
Earlier on Wednesday, Karadi and the Police Investigations Department decided that the officers involved in capturing escape rapist Benny Sela in Nahariya last week would face disciplinary hearings for alleged misconduct during the capture.
The decision came after Karadi met Wednesday with Northern District Police Commander Dan Ronen, following media reports accusing Nahariya police of humiliating Sela.
Karadi said the decision to try the officers for unlawful use of force and inappropriate behavior for a police officer arose from the conclusion that these officers acted against the values of the police force.
If more evidence is found, or should Sela file a complaint, the officers could face criminal charges.
The police called published pictures of Nahariya officers humiliating and ridiculing Sela during his capture an embarrassment for the entire police department.
Karadi was enraged in recent days by media reports accusing Nahariya police of misconduct during the capture. Karadi called criticism of police behavior media hypocrisy, after the press initiated the photo session and convinced officers it was important to publish photos of Sela in police custody to calm the public.
Sources in the Nahariya police dismissed claims of violence, and said they offered food and water to Sela and gave him a towel following his request.
Sela: I did not assault women during my escape
Sela says he did not assault women during his escape, even though he could have done so. He maintains that he was closely following police search activity through the media. Sela spoke to a source in the Rimonim prison which was later aired on Channel 10.
Sela described his days of escape, and said "it was a war of survival. There wasn't any food, no place to sleep; I had to pull strings to get along on the street. I saw police officers looking for me, and I followed the media closely. I watched television the first few days through a window of a woman in Tel Aviv, which I could have broken into and attack. I had opportunities to attack, if I had wanted to. I could have raped, but already in prison I came to terms with myself and I am sorry for what I did."
Karadi says it is too early to determine whether or not Sela assaulted victims during his escape, since Sela is not cooperating with the investigation, and no complaints have been filed yet since his capture.
Four to Receive Reward for Capture
of Escaped Rapist Benny Sela
Israel National News - December 13, 2006
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=117369
(IsraelNN.com) Four people will be receiving NIS 25,000 each for helping capture escaped serial rapist Benny Sela. Baruch Mazor, general manager of the Fischer Fund, said Wednesday that his organization planned to divide the NIS 100,000 award it had promised to whoever caught Sela among four different people who the organization felt had had a direct impact on the serial rapist's capture.
The four are Lior Shatz, the soldier from Kibbutz Kinneret who spotted Sela and reported her sighting to police; Rina Greenberg, the woman who reported the suspicious car that turned out to be the vehicle Sela had stolen; Sela's foster family, who called the police immediately after he visited them while on the run; and finally, the policemen from the Nahariya District Police Station who brought Sela down in the final moments of his chase.
Benny Sela and the weekly portion
God protects us by reminding us that justice is never a game with rules that can be bent
By Rabbi Paul Arberman
YNET News - December 15, 2006
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3341051,00.html
Midrash Bereshit Rabbah (87:10) records a dialogue between Potiphar's wife and Joseph whom she has had thrown in prison that reminded me of the alleged police treatment of Benny Sela this past week.
"See how I have already made you suffer, she says, I will also persecute you in other ways too!" And Joseph responds, '(God) executes justice for the persecuted' (Ps. 147:7).
She says: "I will have your food rations cut down" and Joseph replies: "God gives bread to the hungry." "I will have you put in chains - "God loosens the chains on those who are bound." (ib.) "I will make you bent and bowed" - "God raises up those that are bowed down." (ib.8) "I will blind you - God opens the eyes of the blind." (ib.)
How far did she go? Said R. Huna in Rabbi Acha's name: She went as far as to place an iron fork under his neck so that he should have to lift up his eyes and look at her.
The unfair treatment of Joseph in prison seems to mirror the allegations of police mistreatment of accused rapist Benny Sela. The Justice Ministry's Police Investigations Department is considering opening a criminal investigation on three points:
Forcing Sela to raise his head and be photographed against his will thereby violating his right to privacy.
Beating him after he was captured.
Failing to inform the Public Defender's Office of Sela's request to meet his lawyers.
Judaism teaches us something different
My personal feelings tell me that Sela deserves anything they give him - any abuse - for what he did to destroy the lives of so many women. Our tradition, however, teaches us something different.
Few of the lessons that the talmud brings about human dignity include: A person may not be degraded in public even though he may be suspected of having sinned (BT Menahot 99b, BT Baba Metzia 58b). You cannot strip the clothes off someone in a public place (BT Menahot 37b). You cannot prevent a person from attending to his bodily needs (BT Eruvin 41b).
Rambam, In Hilkhot Sanhedrin 24:10, connects the pursuit of justice with the glory of God: "Whatever (the judge) does should be for the sake of Heaven, and human dignity should not be taken lightly, in his eyes... This applies with even greater force to the honor of the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who adhere to the true Law. He should be careful not to do anything to injure their dignity. His sole concern should be to enhance the glory of God..."
In this week's Haftarah, the prophet Amos admonishes the Jewish people for their insensitivity towards injustice. He begins by informing us of the limits of God's tolerance. God says, "I can be patient over the three offenses of the Jewish people but the fourth is inexcusable." (2:6, 7) He complains about the judges who would bend the law for nominal sums and exchange justice for an inexpensive pair of shoes.
If the allegations of police abuse are true, can we, in Israel be patient or understanding with their three alleged offenses - violating rules of privacy, beating a prisoner, and refusing him counsel?
If you are tempted to be forgiving of alleged police abuse - due to the heinous nature of Benny Sela's crimes - remember that if they are guilty of these three violations, then there is a fourth "sin" of the police which is inexcusable. They weren't just violating and degrading a man before his day in court - they were debasing the image of God in a man.
God protected Joseph when he was thrown in prison on trumped up charges. But God also protects us by reminding us that justice is never a game with rules that can be bent. We are taught, "tzedek, tzedek tirdoff"- we must pursue justice, justly.
We are not free to abuse the dignity of any human being in any circumstance - for therein lies the glory of God - and protection for us all.
Rabbi Paul Arberman is the rabbi of Kehillat Yedid Nefesh, Modiin
Benny Sela Shows How He Removed
Handcuffs
Israel National News - December 18, 2006
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=117666
(IsraelNN.com) Dangerous criminal Benny Sela, who was rearrested after a countrywide manhunt following his escape from prison, showed police officers how he removed the handcuffs he had been wearing in order to escape.
He bent his left thumb, which he broke several years ago, in an unusual way to remove the handcuffs from his left hand. His broken thumb allowed him to tighten his fist enough to remove the handcuffs. Regarding his right hand, it is possible that the handcuffs were simply not closed properly, or that as he has small hands he was simply able to slide it off with the aid of his free left hand.
Police ask for public's help in Sela
investigation
Jerusalem Post - December 18, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1164881919140&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
he central unit of Tel Aviv District Police, investigating the escape of convicted serial rapist Benny Sela, made public on Monday several items of stolen property found in Sela's possession, in hopes of identifying from which houses they were stolen.
The stolen items that were recovered - a red 'Everest' brand sleeping bag, a blue 'Outdoor' brand backpack, a map used for wind-gliding and a dagger with a black handle, were found in a stolen car Sela used during his escape.
Police hoped that the easily distinguishable nature of the items would lead their former owner or owners to report their theft and thus arrive at a more conclusive chronology of Sela's two-week escape from arrest.
In what police considered a non-cooperative interrogation, Sela did disclose that he had tried to contact a relative in the North but could not get through to her, and that he had lived on fruit and vegetables he picked in farms in the North.
Police Appeal for Public's Help in Benny Sela Inquiry
Israel National News - December 18, 2006
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=117660
(IsraelNN.com) As part of the inquiry into the recent escape of serial rapist Benny Sela from jail, a stolen car used by Sela during his flight was found. Various items were also found on him when he was rearrested that may have been stolen in burglaries carried out by Sela during the time that he was at large.
The Tel Aviv department of the Israel Police has published photographs of these items and is appealing to anyone who recognizes them to contact them on 03-6802064 or 03-6801334.
The items are: a dark red sleeping bag made by Everest Elite, a blue "outdoor" backpack, a map wrapped in clear plastic, and a black-handled, double-bladed dagger.
Sela commits 'lewd act' before prison
warden
By Jonathan Lis and Roni Singer-Heruti
Haaretz - December 18, 2006
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/802729.html
Serial rapist Benny Sela yesterday allegedly masturbated in front of a female prison while he was in his cell at the Rimonim Prison in the Sharon region, 10 days after his capture by police following a two-week manhunt. The incident occurred during rounds of the isolated wing where Sela is being held. As the warden spoke to Sela through a small window in his cell, she noticed that he had exposed himself and was touching his genitals. The officer filed a police complaint on the incident, Sela's third public act of sexual misconduct since beginning a 35-year-prison sentence on 14 counts of rape six years ago.
The Tel Aviv District Police, meanwhile, are slowly piecing together Sela's whereabouts during his two weeks of freedom. Yesterday the police asked the public for help in identifying items found in the stolen car Sela was driving when he was captured, in hopes of learning more about the places visited by Sela.
"Our investigation focused on our need to determine where he was and what he did, in order to compare it to our analyses so we can tell ourselves whether we were close or off the mark. So far it appears that our predictions were close," the head of the investigative team, Chief Inspector Momi Meshulam, said.
"In our estimation, he spent most of the time in the Sharon region," Meshulam continued. "We have no idea how he got there, but from various evidence it appears that he spent most of the time in open areas in the region." The first evidence of this came from a resident of Ein Sarid who knew Sela from the past and told police he was certain he had seen Sela riding a bicycle near his home, four days after the escape. No fingerprints were found on the bike, which had been stolen the day before from Kadima, where Sela once lived. The police also found a sleeping bag that Sela had stolen, a backpack, a Commando knife and a map of the North.
Sela was definitely in Binyamina after his escape. A police officer reported having seen someone believed to be Sela eating in a banquet hall in the city, and apparently it was Sela. The police have more information that they refused to disclose placing Sela in Binyamina. After Binyamina, Sela went to Hadera. "We know that Sela made a call from a public telephone in the city, and we also found a weekly newspaper from Binyamina in his car," Meshulam said.
Sela called directory assistance from the public phone and asked for all telephone numbers for Amos Yaron, who headed up the investigation into his escape. A list of phone numbers and addresses of people with that name was found among Sela's possessions when he was apprehended. Phone numbers of Hillel Yaffe Hospital and Magen David Adom in Hadera were also found. Sela also had the phone numbers for several escort services, but police believe he was not in contact with prostitutes during his escape.
Female officer says Sela committed
indecent act in front of her
By REBECCA ANNA STOIL
Jerusalem Post - December 19, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1164881923332&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Serial rapist Benny Sela, currently being detained at Rimonim Prison, was back in the dubious limelight after allegedly committing an indecent act in his cell while talking to a female Israel Prisons Service (IPS) officer on Monday.
The Prisons Service officials said the officer arrived at the isolation ward to speak with Sela, but as they were conversing, she noticed his face was turning red. As Sela was located on the other side of a closed door, the officer could only see his facial expression as they spoke. Sela allegedly held a small mirror in his hand and when he moved it, the officer noticed that he had exposed himself and was performing an indecent act during the conversation.
The officer immediately informed the wardens, who brought in an investigator, and a complaint was filed with the police. After hearing the information, police decided to open a case against Sela on charges of indecent exposure and committing an indecent act.
"It was a disgusting incident," one female IPS officer told the The Jerusalem Post Monday evening.
Earlier Monday, Tel Aviv police investigating Sela's escape asked for the public's help in identifying items found on Sela's person that they believed had been stolen while the serial rapist tried to evade police searches. Police said that in the stolen car in which Sela was traveling when apprehended, they found camping equipment, including a dark-red sleeping bag, a hiking backpack, a laminated map and a sharpened blade.
Police said that citizens who had such items stolen from them in recent weeks should contact police, in the hopes that finding the owners will help them determine where Sela spent the two weeks after he escaped police custody.
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Last Updated: 12/21/2006
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