Haifa court releases mother arrested after video of child on leash, criticizes police

A Haifa magistrate judge ordered the release of a mother arrested on suspicion of abusing her daughter after a video showed a child being led on a leash. The court criticized police for not verifying that the mother was not the woman in the footage and for holding her after the investigation concluded.

The Haifa Magistrate's Court today (Tuesday) released from detention the mother who was arrested yesterday after her daughter was documented being led on all fours with a leash in Haifa. The court criticized the police for the fact that the arrested mother is not documented in the video at all – and the person leading her daughter on the leash is a relative who has not been questioned at all. Now, after the mother's release, the relative is expected to be summoned for questioning. According to the court, there is no suspicion of abuse on the part of the mother, a psychologist by profession. In her investigation, she claimed that although the footage published on social media looks bad, in practice it was a game between her daughter and the relative. The court criticized the police for not even performing a "basic investigative action" before arresting the mother following the footage, and for keeping her in detention overnight despite the fact that she is not documented in the video. The mother's attorney, Binyamin Harel, stated that this was a false arrest that gained momentum due to the leak of the video to the media.