The Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office today (Friday) submitted to the city’s district court an indictment against Yehoshua Dadon, 34, an extremist resident of Beit Shemesh – after he was involved in breaking into and setting fire to the ‘Von Kosher’ store in the Geula neighborhood of Jerusalem, before Yom Kippur.
According to the indictment, which was submitted through attorney Manal Abu Amer, due to a lack of agreement between the owner of the ‘Von Kosher’ store, which is used for the sale of mobile devices and related accessories, and the ‘Committee of the Rabbis for Communications Affairs’, it was decided not to grant the store a kosher certificate. As a result, there were demonstrations by extremists in front of the store.
Bej in Tishrei, the accused and three others broke into the store, dressed in Hasidic clothing and wearing headscarves. The accused set fire to a small object and threw it into the store and as a result it was completely set on fire, including its contents.
The damage due to his actions was estimated at about NIS 600,000.
After the incident, the accused fled to the Miron area and did not report to the police investigation.
The indictment attributes to the accused the commission of crimes of arson, extortion by threats and obstruction of justice.
The prosecution asks the court to order the arrest of the accused until the end of the legal proceedings against him.
The request for arrest states, among other things, that “the circumstances of a deliberate arson in the middle of the night…in the heart of a city, with a real risk to the residents of the place and the potential for tremendous damage to property and life, for ideological reasons, establishes the conclusion that there is no suitable substitute for arresting the respondent until the end of the legal proceedings against him.”
Following Dadon’s arrest last week, riots occurred in the capital, during which Mirel Dzalovski, a 40-year-old Karlin Hasidic, mother of 11 children, was seriously injured by a trash can that was thrown at her during a demonstration on Yehezkel Street.