Senior Police Officers Claim They Were Pressured By Politicians To Allow Mass Entry To Meron

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — A number of former senior police officers testified Saturday night that they were under intense pressure by different politicians regarding the celebrations at Meron, according to a report by Mako News.

The officers claim that they whenever they refused a demand from the politicians they were informed that their promotion would be stopped. The reason for this is that the State of Israel never took authority over the organization of the Meron celebration, leaving it in the hands of private bodies. This effectively left the police as the organizer and authorizer for the entire festivity. Since police officers are chosen by government officials they were under intense pressure and this may determine who is responsible for the tragedy in Meron.

A former police officer said that police would receive demands to allow a certain Admor into the Meron compound by car. Suddenly it became apparent that there are lots of Admorim. There were also requests to increase the number of people on the benches and to allow freer access to the compound.

“Police officers who warned of the danger and said “no” received explicit threats like “it’s a shame your promotion will be stopped, your next appointment will be cancelled because of this, ” the officer said. “Even during this last event there were such messages, the moment Internal Investigations gets hold of the senior policemen’s telephones.”

After senior police officers realized that there may be a national inquiry into the Meron tragedy besides the criminal investigation being conducted by Internal Investigations, a number of officers spoke with defense lawyers and some even signed them on in an attempt to defend themselves against criminal charges and accusations which may evolve.