Horrific Haredi Child Abuser To be Extradited
Cult under his leadership tortured and mutilated small children.
Self-proclaimed rabbi who fled to Brazil after being charged with ordering a follower to inflict 'corrective' physical, emotional, mental damage on her children, to return to Israel to stand trial
Aviad Glickman, Ynet
Self-proclaimed "Rabbi" Elior Chen, who fled Israel to Brazil last year after being accused of instructing one of his followers to beat her child to the point of permanent brain damage, will be extradited to Israel, the Justice Ministry said Friday.
According to Justice Ministry sources, the extradition order must be signed by the Brazilian justice minister, and Chen should be scheduled to land in Israel in up to six weeks' time, after Israel Police officials and prosecution representatives leave to Brazil to coordinate his extradition with local authorities.
Chen allegedly ordered a mother from Beitar Ilit to inflict severe emotional, mental and physical harm on two of her children, aged three and four-years-old, under the guise of "legitimate educational values" in the start of 2008. The three-year-old suffered permanent brain damage.
The indictment filed in the case listed a number of horrendous acts prescribed by the rabbi as "corrective" education.
The "corrections" included shaking, beating, binding, burning and force-feeding the children their excrements, all carried out with the goal of "extracting the demons ands parasites that live in the children".
As soon as the investigation against him was launched, Chen fled the country and an international arrest warrant was issued against him. Some two months after his escape, Chen was found wandering the streets in Sao Paulo, Brazil and was arrested.
The "rabbi" was transferred to the city's federal police headquarters and refused to return to Israel.
His lawyers argued that despite the extradition treaty between the two countries, the Israeli authorities' request must not be granted, since Beitar Ilit is located in the West Bank – "Occupied territory that is not subject to the Israeli justice system."
The Israeli Justice Ministry responded to the Brazilian authorities saying Beitar Ilit was indeed subject to Israeli law and that the defense's claims should be rejected.
The Brazilian supreme court ruling to have Chen extradited was made unanimously on Thursday, after an extradition request was filed by the State Prosecutor's Office department for international affairs.
Here's a better report from the Jerusalem post:
Brazil to extradite 'Rabbi' Elior Chen
JPOST.COM STAFF
Brazil's Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the extradition of Rabbi Elior Chen to Israel where he will stand trial on charges of child abuse, the Justice Ministry said on Friday.
Chen, the suspected ringleader and spiritual mentor in one of the worst child abuse cases in Israeli history, was arrested in Sao Paolo on June 3 after his local lawyer called Brazilian police with information about his whereabouts and had been fighting his extradition from Brazil since.
Israel and Brazil do not have an extradition treaty but law enforcement officials have been working hand-in-hand since an international warrant for Chen's arrest was issued in April 2008, when Justice Ministry had said that Chen could be extradited to Israel 'in the coming weeks' if he did not mount a protracted legal battle.
Chen and his followers are suspected of savagely and systematically beating two brothers, aged three and four, with hammers, knives and other instruments for months, until the younger boy lost consciousness in March.
They are also suspected of the severe abuse of other children in the family.
The three-year-old suffered permanent brain damage as a result of the abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother and her companions, and is expected to remain in a vegetative state for the rest of his life.
Chen had fled the country just as police uncovered the abuse case, traveling to Brazil via Canada with his own family.
He turned himself in to Brazilian police on June 3 to avoid besmirching the local Jewish community, who were getting bad press as a result of the case, his lawyer said.
Five people, including the children's mother, have already been indicted.
The mother forced her children to eat feces, locked them in a suitcase for three days - letting them out only for brief periods of time - repeatedly beat, whipped, and shook them, burned their hands with a lighter and a heater, and gave them freezing showers, according to the charge sheet.
The mother and Chen and his 'educators' are also suspected of pouring salt on the three-year-old's burn wounds, stuffing his mouth with a kippa and sealing his mouth with masking tape, and giving the children alcoholic drinks until they vomited.
Etgar Lefkovits contributed to this report.
A wedding takes place. There's joy in the air: a young couple, with great potential, are uniting to bring children into the world. Blesings are said. People leave with smiles on their faces.
Soon, a baby is born to them. A child, a gift straight from the Heavenly throne, is sent into this world and depends every moment of his or her life, for years, upon the love and devotion of his parents. Totally innocent. Totally vulnerable. Totally incapable of fighting any form of abuse.
And soon the abuse begins. And it's violent, searingly painful. It's pure torture. And it's being inflicted by one's own mother, the only one on earth a child could normally turn to for limitless love and protection.
I can't begin to think of what was going through the minds of these children as they suffered, non-stop, the worst imaginable torture. Imagine yourself a child and you're being whipped, and beaten, and frozen, and burned. Every day.
I am so sorry, little innocent children. I am so very sorry for you. I am shattered. I am weeping for you. You were in heaven not long before, and then, upon arrival on earth, you were subjected to the worst of humanity, and they were your parents. I am so deeply ashamed to be human sometimes. This is one of them.
May God in His infinite mercy take you unto His bosom, love you, heal you, repair you, teach you Torah, and prepare for you a better life next to Him.
We were once, all of us, infants. Helpless. Dependent. In need of love.
Friends, what shall we do for these poor children?
Posted by: shmuel | May 22, 2009 at 08:50 AM
Beatiful piece Shmuel. A follow up question to "Friends, what shall we do for these poor children?", is "What should we do to R.Chen and the cruel mother?"
Posted by: Ben | May 22, 2009 at 09:43 AM
And the mother listened to such a quasi Rabbi? I am Orthodox-what is this Rabbi?
Perel
Posted by: Pearl | May 22, 2009 at 09:46 AM
"Innocent until proven Guilty"
does this not apply to Orthodox Jews?
Posted by: mo | May 22, 2009 at 10:29 AM
what is this Rabbi?
A murderer.
Posted by: steve | May 22, 2009 at 10:32 AM
There were people I knew in Yeshiva who would have done anything their Rabbi told them to do. The mother's obedience doesn't surprise me; especially when you think of the authority we give these men and the amount of power they now hold in Israeli politics and government.
Posted by: radical feminist | May 22, 2009 at 11:03 AM
YOu got to hand it to this guy, first he leads people into the most horrific sick torture of infants, and then he claims that Israel has no right to the West Bank as though he were some sort of political refugee.
I"ll bet anything he will argue something like this kid had Hitler's soul and so it was a mitzva for him to torment it, etc.
It also proves how easy it is for sometime to claim "super powers" in an anti-science anti-Western education environment like the freak BT world. And you know, some people will defend him.
A great Rav once told me that all claims of "spiritual power" are empty, the only "test" for this is teaching new and beuatiful insights into Torah, and if they have nothing to teach, then they are frauds, simple as that. That test would eliminate most of the so-called "tzaddikim". Unfortunatly, the screening test for "tzaddikim" (or any other type of Jewish leadership) is lower than for your average plumber or car mechanic. Perhaps rather than focus on screening and licensure for converts we should spend more time focusing on screening, licensure, and mandatory educational requirements for "Rabbis" "tzaddikim" and "gedolim".
Posted by: maven | May 22, 2009 at 12:09 PM
Maven
Excellent comments
very well said.
Posted by: radical feminist | May 22, 2009 at 12:23 PM
Maven, your point "I'll bet anything he will argue something like this kid had Hitler's soul and so it was a mitzva for him to torment it, etc." is well taken.
Our schools teach the story abuot Moshe Rabbeinu saving a Jewish kid from Egyptians, who were about to kill him by cementing into a wall. They say that this kid later become a major trouble for Jewish people. The lesson is that Hashem knew what had to be done and Moshe interfered with his plan and his act brought only troubles to this world.
This story always seemed highly immoral to me. Blame the victim type. I see how this ingrained defence could be used by this particular pervert, and for this matter, by any criminal.
Posted by: Ben | May 22, 2009 at 03:09 PM
Maven, the Sufis have a good perspective on it. If you wake up and discover that the Almighty has given you extraordinary powers don't worry about it. It's just another test between your ego and your soul. Get on with your life. Ignore them and they'll go away and stop bothering you.
I won't speak to the existence of these things. But I would contend that it's a healthier and above all more modest attitude which leads to fewer cultists and brain-damaged children.
Posted by: A. Nuran | May 22, 2009 at 03:17 PM
A. Nuran: The Zohar says the same thing, interestingly, specifically about dreams; it says that having prophetic dreams is actually a punishment as a result of sin. Makes perfect sense, just ask Oedipus or Lacan (Lacan points out that if Oedipus' father didn't have a prophetic dream that his son was going to kill him, the whole story never would have happened).
Anyway, I'm pretty certain this Chen has no "powers" other than the usual ones sick sadists have, like being super-strong when compared to three year olds.
Posted by: maven | May 22, 2009 at 05:46 PM
Nothing good... In Israel he will get the maximum 10 years in Kollel-like atmosphere in a religious wing of the prison, under protective custody... I would preferred him to be in Brazilian prison with Rodrigo the Terrible and Juan the Hero (both lifers from the Coke mafia) in the same cell
Posted by: PhD | May 23, 2009 at 04:27 PM