The Supreme Court today (Thursday) unanimously accepted the prosecution’s appeal, and convicted Avraham Leshem of aggravated rape and indecent assault on a minor, who committed a 4.5-year-old girl outside the synagogue in Jerusalem, on Saturday evening, March 2019.
This is a case in which Leshem, a 26-year-old Katzrin resident, was charged by the State Attorney’s Office with committing offenses of rape and indecent assault on a minor in aggravated circumstances. The district court found the girl’s testimony credible, and even ruled, as the pediatrician was also impressed, that the girl had experienced the things she described in her testimony. Despite this, the Jerusalem District Court decided to convict Leshem of only an indecent act, after acquitting him of the rape offense with which he was charged, and to convict him of an indecent act in public, instead of an indecent act on a minor in aggravated circumstances.
The criminal department of the prosecution filed an appeal with the Supreme Court, seeking to convict the defendant of the offenses of rape and indecent assault on the minor in aggravated circumstances, attributed to him in the indictment, and return the case to the district court for re-sentencing.
On appeal, the State argued, inter alia, that given the finding that the girl’s testimony before the child investigator was found credible and in her testimony she stated that she had committed an act of rape, the District Court could not have allowed, without the defendant himself claiming, an alternative and especially inconsistent explanation. The state argued that a review of the girl’s interrogation documented in the video, and a review of the child’s interrogator’s testimony, was not a basis for the district court’s determination that the girl’s remarks could reach more than one possible conclusion, but the only conclusion could be reached. The State also argued that the District Court’s determination significantly impairs the weight attributable to the testimony of minors, and especially of soft-spoken children, given before child investigators.
Also with respect to the offense of indecent act, it was argued that the district court erred in law in making the defendant guilty of the lesser offense of public indecency and not the offense of indecent act in aggravated circumstances, attributed to the defendant in the indictment.
Justices Mintz, Wilner and Stein fully accepted the prosecution’s position, dismissed the defendant’s appeal and as aforesaid convicted of the offenses of rape and indecent act on the minor in aggravated circumstances.
Judge Wilner Huff wrote that “On the fringes of things, but not on the fringes of their importance, I would like to strengthen the hands of the young N. and her parents, for the great courage they needed to succeed in the investigation and the long legal process.” .
In the original sentence, a sentence of 3.5 years’ actual imprisonment, probation and compensation for the injured girl in the amount of NIS 50,000 was imposed. Now that the aforesaid Supreme Court has accepted the State’s appeal, the case will return to the Jerusalem District Court for the updated sentencing.
“The family welcomes the decision,” the girl’s parents said in a response. “Serious sex offenders like Avraham Leshem are behind bars for many years. And the Supreme Court did well in its decision, The proper heart and appropriate punishments, hence the responsibility of the Jerusalem District Court to impose the relevant severe punishment, to instill hope in all victims of sexual offenses, because the system is able to protect them and take their situation into account.
“These have been long and complex years of hard day that we do not wish on anyone. Like us there are many families and many more victims, and it is important for us to strengthen victims of sexual offenses to find the strength to file a complaint – because a complaint prevents the next injury, and together we do everything we can to prevent These experiences are different in the future. “