A senior police commander who was fired last year for sexual misconduct will face charges in a police disciplinary court, the police said in a statement on Tuesday.
Assistant Chief Hagai Dotan (ret.) was charged by a police disciplinary court on Tuesday with the offenses of sexual harassment and conduct unbecoming of an officer.
The indictment covers six cases, including three involving sexual harassment and three in which he showed conduct unbecoming of an officer in that he had romantic relations with female officers.
In late February, the Justice Ministry announced that they had decided to close the criminal case against Dotan, but that they would recommend disciplinary charges against him.
At the time the ministry said that the decision to settle for a disciplinary trial was influenced by the fact that he had already been terminated by the police and that his acts of harassment were verbal and “not especially severe” according to the ministry’s statement.
In addition, there was not a significant age difference between he and the complainants or any evidence that his relationship with them affected decisions he made regarding their employment with the police, the ministry said.
When the allegations against Dotan went public last year he was at the time the eighth assistant chief– the highest rank in the police after commissioner who had been dismissed or resigned following sexual misconduct complaints in only a year and a half.
News that Dotan would face a disciplinary court came a week after it was reported that Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich told a police meeting held for International Women’s Day that the agency would no longer investigate anonymous sexual harassment complaints issued against commanders.
Alsheich said that such complaints were being exploited as part of a “culture of settling accounts” in the Israel Police.
The statement by Alsheich drew widespread condemnation from MKs and womens groups, as well as the Justice Ministry’s Police Investigative Department, who said that they would investigate any complaint they receive regardless of how it is submitted, just as they did before.
