The Jerusalem Magistrate Court last week acquitted two online surfers accused of “threatening the life” of MK Ahmad Tibi (Joint Arab List) Arab List), ruling that “defendants had no realistic way of making good on their threat,” Walla reported Monday. The indictment, served on January 2016, stemmed from comments published in Tibi’s Facebook page in January 2012.
One of the surfers wrote: “You’ll be dead soon,” and “Tibi, you ugly one, better you should run away ’cause soon they’ll kill you.” The other surfer, a woman, added her comment to the initial one: “Not to worry, his end is near, in a jiffy.”
The comments were written in response to a 2011 speech in which MK Tibi praised “shaids” killed by Israeli security forces.
“The violation of issuing threats in a Facebook talkback is not the same as issuing threats face to face,” Judge Sharon Larry-Bavly wrote in her ruling, adding that, according to the defendants’ testimony, the threats were “wishful thinking which the accused left for the Holy One Blessed Be His name to carry out as best He can.”
Judge Larry-Bavly accepted the defense argument of selective enforcement. Apparently, a third surfer who also wrote threatening comments on Tibi’s page was not indicted. She wrote, among other things: “Ahmad Tibi, every dog has his day,” and “You and all the terrorists, your day will come, with God’s help.”
The judge noted the unusually lengthy stretch of time between when the threats had been published and the indictments. She was also unhappy that the female defendant was taken for interrogation in a patrol car along with her little daughter, because police refused to let her get the girl to kindergarten.
Public Defender Isaac Bam said after the ruling that “it’s about time for the prosecution to get some proportions and understand that not every statement on Facebook justifies an indictment.”
“It’s a shame that the prosecution is wasting its time and the court’s time on nonsense cases.”