Levy's lawyer blasts commission for bias

By DAN IZENBERG
The lawyer representing Asst.-Cmdr. Yoram Levy and Chief-Supt. Ruby Gilboa told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday he was considering petitioning the High Court of Justice to eliminate all of the findings and recommendations of the Zeiler Commission against his clients on the grounds that the commission had been biased against them. "The panel violated my clients' right to due process," said attorney Boaz Ben-Zur. He charged, for example, that the commission had interviewed some of the witnesses in secret, including television reporter Ilana Dayan, whose report on the affair in January 2005 had forced the Police Investigations Department to launch an investigation against Levy after five years in which it had refused to do so. According to Ben-Zur, the meeting with Dayan had taken place in a private house and was not initially revealed to the public. He also charged that the commission had met witnesses and received testimony after the public hearings had been concluded. He was not allowed to see the information nor given the opportunity to respond to it. He also charged that almost from the first day of the hearings, the members of the commission, particularly Zeiler, had made it clear they thought Levy was guilty of improper relations with the Perinian brothers. Earlier, prior to a press conference held by the members of the panel, Ben-Zur told Israel Radio the committee had "marked" his client from the beginning and had "violated the legal rights of those under investigation." "I am not speaking in the name of [Police Insp.-Gen. Moshe] Karadi or [Jerusalem District Commander Ilan] Franco, but I know that the committee did not submit sufficient proof throughout the investigation." Regarding the findings of the panel and its recommendation to fire Levy and Gilboa, Ben-Zur said, "We are talking about harsh conclusions, but they were known in advance. The writing was on the wall from the start." During the press conference, Zeiler denied he had targeted Levy from the outset. He said that the members of the committee had been open-minded regarding all of those involved in the affair.