The police will on Thursday file an indictment against Yarden Mann, who is suspected of attacking the Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman.

The police informed Mann and her attorney of the decision to file the indictment during a hearing held at the District Court in Rishon Lezion on Wednesday evening, in which the suspect's attorney asked for her release.

The judge at the hearing was surprised that the indictment would be filed in less than a day after the arrest and replied to the police prosecutor, "Are you serious?"

The police representative replied: "There is a serious incident here, an attack on a minister in our country."

Mann's defense attorney, attorney Yoni Nussbaum, claimed that "the petitioner has no criminal record, a mother of a child on the autistic spectrum, she is a normative person. She is in shock."

Mann, a 52-year-old teacher from Rehovot, is suspected of knocking a cell phone out of Silman's hand, and then slapping her.

The police representative described that she "started taking pictures of the minister, taunting her and threatening to harm her. The minister inquired why she was talking to her like that and she allegedly attacked the minister, by knocking the cell phone out of her hand with which she came to take pictures of the suspect, and then slapping her in the face. Thanks to bystanders who were witnesses to the incident, the suspect was located."

"She was questioned about the incident, linked herself to the incident but denied what was attributed to her. She claimed that she recorded the minister and in response the minister pushed her and moved her hand. She denies that she threatened her," he added.

An eyewitness to the incident said that she saw how the suspect slapped Silman. "I saw that woman photographing Idit while she was talking on the phone. Idit came to take pictures of the woman who was trying to flee, and when Idit approached her, she slapped her and threw her cell phone."