Court: How did they have the gall to appeal? They should ask their grieving and injured brothers’ pardon and forgiveness for their criminal negligence, arrogance, and lack of attention.
”It was one of the worst civil disasters in Israel’s history. The negligence of the appellants is so great, so unmistakable, and so obvious. How did they have the gall to appeal their convictions and raise such infuriating contentions?” said the Tel Aviv District Court in rejecting the appeals of the accused in the Maccabiah disaster.
The Court added, “The appellants behaved with gross negligence, abused the public’s trust, and were careless with the lives of thousands of Maccabiah participants, who marched on an unsafe bridge, several of them to their deaths. The appellants abandoned the Maccabiah participants and their families to disaster, and they should ask their grieving and injured brothers' pardon and forgiveness for their criminal negligence, arrogance, and lack of attention.”
The appellants were engineer Micha Bar-Ilan, sentenced to 21 months in prison; Yehoshua Ben-Ezra and Baruch Karagula, partners and managers of Ben-Ezra-Karagula steel plant, sentenced to 15 months; Adam Mishori, general manager of Irgunit, sentenced to nine months; and Maccabiah Games chairman Yoram Eyal. The Maccabiah Games in question took place in July 1997.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on October 11, 2001