12:26 - Time to Stop Administrative Detention

On 26 March 2009, Addameer Association launched a global campaign to Stop Administrative Detention, a form of detention without charge or trial. Administrative detainees are arrested by the Israeli Occupying Forces on the basis of Military Order 1226 – the order which empowers military commanders to detain an individual for up to six months if they have “reasonable grounds to presume that the security of the area or public security require the detention.” On or just before the expiry date, the detention order is frequently renewed. This process can be continued indefinitely. There is no explicit limit for a maximum amount of time an individual may be detained, leaving room for indefinite detention. Detainees are not informed of the reasons of their detention; neither are their lawyers.

Addameer’s campaign to Stop Administrative Detention calls for:

• the end of Israel’s practice of administrative detention
• an immediate release of all administrative detainees

ACT NOW!

Here are a few practical actions that you can take to support administrative detainees and voice your outrage to continuous imprisonment without trial.

• Write messages of solidarity to Palestinian administrative detainees.

POSTAL ADDRESS: Ofer Prison, Givat Zeev, P.O. Box 3007, via Israel

POSTAL ADDRESS: Ketziot Prison, P.O. Box 13, 84102 0, Israel

POSTAL ADDRESS: Hasharon Prison, Ben Yehuda, P.O. Box 7, 40 330, Israel

• Write to the Israeli government, military and legal authorities, demanding that administrative detainees be released immediately and that their administrative detention not be renewed. In particular letters should be addressed to Lt. Colonel Sharon Afek Legal Advisor to the Israeli Army in the West Bank Chief Military Attorney:

P.O. Box 10482, Beit El, West Bank
Tel: 972-2-997-7071, Mobile: 972-50-551-1782
Fax: 972-2-997-7326

Letters can also be addressed to:

• Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu
  Prime Minister
  Office of the Prime Minister
  3, Kaplan Street, PO Box 187
  Kiryat Ben-Gurion, Jerusalem, Israel
  Fax: +972- 2-651 2631
  Email: pm_eng@pmo.gov.il

• Mr Menachem Mazuz
  Attorney General
  Fax: + 972 2 627 4481; + 972 2 628 5438; +972 2 530 3367
• Brigadier General Avihai Mandelblit
  Military Judge Advocate General
  6 David Elazar Street
  Hakirya, Tel Aviv, Israel
  Fax:  +972 3 608 0366, +972 3 569 4526
  Email: arbel@mail.idf.il, avimn@.idf.gov.il
  Salutation: Dear Judge Advocate General

• Write to Israeli Embassies and Consulates in your own country. A directory of Israeli embassies can be found on the website of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the following link:

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Sherut/IsraeliAbroad/Continents/

• Write to the International Bar Association (IBA) and ask its members and Human Rights Institute to put pressure on the Israeli Bar Association to ensure that all subjects under Israeli jurisdiction be granted the basic principles of rule of law - transparent processes which do not allow for arbitrary justice or governance.
  Letters of concern should be addressed to Ms. Fiona Paterson, Director of the Human Rights Institute, International Bar Association.

Fiona Paterson, Director
Human Rights Institute
International Bar Association
10th Floor
1 Stephen St
London, W1T 1AT
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)20 7691 6868
E-mail: fiona.paterson@int-bar.org
Fax: +44 (0)20 7691 6544
Website:  www.ibanet.org
Please cc, the Human Rights Institute general email: hri@int-bar.org

• Write also to representatives of the European Union urging the EU to pressure Israel to release administrative detainees and to put an end to such an unjust, arbitrary and cruel system of incarceration without trial.
  Send your letters of appeal to:

Personal Representative for Human Rights (CFSP) of the EU Secretary General/High Representative Javier Solana
Ms. Riina Kionka
175  Rue de la Loi BE 1048 Brussels, Belgium
Fax: +32 2 281 61 90
Email: riina.kionka@consilium.europa.eu

The Commissioner for External Affairs and European Neighbourhood Policy
H.E. Ms. Benita Ferrero- Waldner
Email: relex-enpinfo@ec.europa.eu

Write to your own elected representatives urging them to pressure Israel to release administrative detainees and to put an end to such an unjust, arbitrary and cruel system of incarceration without trial.

For more information on administrative detention and the campaign to Stop Administrative Detention, please contact Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association at: info@addameer.ps

Stop Administrative Detention Campaign

Administrative Detention is a procedure under which detainees are held without charge or trial. In the occupied Palestinian West Bank, the Israeli army carries out administrative detention on the basis of Military Order 1226. This order empowers military commanders to detain an individual for up to six months if they have “reasonable grounds to presume that the security of the area or public security require the detention.” On or just before the expiry date, the detention order is frequently renewed. This process can be continued indefinitely.

There are approximately 546 administrative detainees in
Israeli prisons and detention centers including 3
women and 13 children under the age of 18.

What is Administrative Detention?

Administrative detention is a procedure under which detainees are held without charge or trial. In the occupied Palestinian West Bank, the Israeli army carries out administrative detention on the basis of Military Order 1226 (1988). This order empowers military commanders to detain an individual for up to six months if they have “reasonable grounds to presume that the security of the area or public security require the detention.” On or just before the expiry date, the detention order is frequently renewed. This process can be continued indefinitely.

Israeli military and civil laws related to the administrative detention orders are based on the British Mandate Emergency Law for the year 1945.  No definition of “public security” is given and the initial six month period can be extended by additional six-month periods indefinitely. Administrative detention orders are issued either at the time of arrest or at some later date and are often based on secret evidence collected by the Israeli Security Agency (ISA).  Neither the detainee, nor the detainee’s lawyers are given access to the secret evidence. (1)

The detainee is brought before the Administrative Detention Court within eight days of his or her arrest, for the Court to decide on the legality of the detention, however, information concerning the reasons for the detention remains secret.

How Does International Law Protect from Arbitrary Detention?

“No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention”. (2)

“Anyone who is deprived of his liberty by arrest or detention shall
be entitled to take proceedings before a court, in order that the
court may decide without delay on the lawfulness of his detention
and order his release if the detention is not lawful” . (3)

The Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, as well as human rights law, provide the international legal standards that are to be applied to administrative detention in armed conflict and other situations of violence. International law permits administrative detention under specific narrowly defined circumstances.

In accordance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) there must be a public emergency that threatens the life of the nation. Furthermore, administrative detention can only be ordered on an individual case-by-case basis, without discrimination of any kind. A state’s collective,non-individual detention of a whole category of persons could in no way be considered a proportional response, regardless of what the circumstances of the emergency concerned might be.

In terms of reasons for internment, the Fourth Convention specifies that a protected person may be interned or placed in assigned residence only if “the security of the Detaining Power makes it absolutely necessary” (Article 42) or, in occupied territory, for “imperative reasons of security” (Article 78).

How does Israel use administrative detention?

According to Adalah, Israel has sought to justify its policy of administrative detention, or arrest without charge or trial, by the outstanding claim that it has been under a “state of emergency since 1948” and is therefore justified in suspending or “derogating” from certain rights, including the right not to be arbitrarily detained. (4)

Administrative detention has been used as a form of collective punishment by the Israeli military against Palestinians, illegal in this form under international law. For example, during the period of March 2002 to October 2002, Israeli Occupying Forces arrested over 15,000 Palestinians during mass arrest campaigns, rounding up males in cities and villages between the ages of 15 to 45. In October 2002, there were over 1,050 Palestinians in administrative detention. By the beginning of March 2003, Israel held more than one thousand Palestinians in administrative detention. In 2007, Israel held a monthly average of 830 administrative detainees, which was one hundred higher than in 2006. Furthermore, during the PLC elections of 2006,Israel placed dozens of candidates from the Islamic ‘Change and Reform Party’ in administrative detention. Some of them are imprisoned to this day.

Over the years, only nine Israeli citizens from settlements in the West Bank have reportedly been detained for periods up to six months.

In many of the legal cases pursued by Addameer Association, Palestinian detainees spent years in prison after being sentenced for committing violations, in accordance with military orders.When the period ended, however, they were placed under administrative detention under the pretext that they still pose a threat to security. Israeli authorities do not hesitate to violate the standards of fair trial, and fail to take international law or humanitarian dimension into consideration while handling the issue of administrative detention.

What are Administrative Detention Conditions?

Administrative detention should never be of a punitive nature. As enshrined in article 10 of the ICCPR, “all persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person”. This implies not only the right not to be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, but also that those deprived of their liberty should be kept in conditions that take into account their status and needs.

Minimum Rights and Guarantees of Administrative Detainees under states of emergency

• The right to be brought before a judicial authority promptly after
  arrest
• The right to receive an explanation of rights upon arrest in their own
  language or soon thereafter and to be informed of the specific reasons
  for the deprivation of liberty;
• The right of immediate access to family, legal counsel and a medical
  officer;
• The right to communicate with and be visited by a representative of
  an international humanitarian agency, such as the ICRC;
• The right to challenge, in a fair hearing and periodically if necessary,
  the lawfulness of the detention and to be released if the detention is
  arbitrary or unlawful;
• The right to complain to a judicial authority about mistreatment;
• The right to seek and obtain compensation if the detention proves to
  be arbitrary or unlawful.

United Nations Committee of the Human Rights Commission (1962) in charge of the study on
the right of everyone to be free from arbitrary arrest, detention and exile.

The above mentioned minimum standards are not fully and adequately respected. When guaranteed, they are often applied only partially. Detainees are brought before a judicial authority only eight days following their arrest. The right to immediate access to family is compromised with detainees waiting in some cases for a month before their first visit. But most importantly, the fairness of the trial in military court is never assured making it difficult, if not impossible, to prove that one’s detention is arbitrary or unlawful, especially in a situation where the Israeli authorities maintain the security discourse.

Addameer interviews and lawyers’ visits indicate that administrative detainees in Israeli prisons are not separated from the rest of the prison population. Neither do they benefit from special food (5) nor from the right to wear their own clothes to which they are entitled by the Israeli law. Prison personnel usually do not receive specific training on how to deal with administrative detainees and on international law regarding administrative detainees. Administrative detainees in Israel must endure severe restrictions on their right to education, rights to communicate with families and receive visits, and right to adequate medical treatment.

1. Amnesty International describes administrative detention in Israel as «a procedure under which detainees are held without charge or trial […] No charges are filed, and there is no intention of bringing a detainee to trial. By the detention order, a detainee is given a specific term of detention. “On or before the expiry of the term, the detention order is frequently renewed. This process can be continued indefinitely.”

2. Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

3. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICPPR), Article 9

4 . Adalah (2003) Submission to the UN Human Rights Committee Adalah (22 July 2003). Available online at: www.adalah.org

5.  As per Israeli law, administrative detainees are entitled to the same food as police guards as opposed to the food served to other “security prisoners”.

Gara, February 28, 2009:
Ahmad Sa’adat no aceptará el exilio, sólo regresar a su hogar en Ramallah?

Reuters, February 3, 2009:
Gaza detainees allege Israeli mistreatment

Haaretz, January 28 2009:
Rights groups: IDF subjected Gaza detainees to deplorable conditions

Haaretz, October 16, 2008:
Two Palestinian girls detained in Israel without trial for months

Liberazione (Italy), April 18 2008:
Luisa Morgantini, Justice for the Palestinian Prisoners

The Guardian (UK), June 9 2007:
Manal Ghanem, 1967: A Birth in Prison

As a result of their visible activity in the current Intifada, Palestinian women have not escaped the mass arrest campaigns. Palestinian women in detention are subjected to mistreatment on a daily basis and are often held in cells and sections with Israeli criminal prisoners. Regular body searches are performed with brutality by prison guards; sexual harassment occurs frequently; the right to elect a representative for their collective demands is not recognized as in other prisons; solitary confinement is often used as a form of punishment; detainees are prohibited from going outside regularly or of using the canteen; cell searches and confiscation of personal belongings is a common practice; and attacks on women by beating or firing tear gas into cells occur regularly.

At the end of 2004, there were over 120 Palestinian women being held by Israeli authorities. The number has steadily increased over the years of the Intifada making this the largest number of female detainees held by Israel in two-decades. Female prisoners are placed in 2 central prisons, Neve Tresta and Hasharon-Telmond.

17 of these women are mothers, two women, Mervat Taha and Manal Ghanem, gave birth while in detention and Manal continues to live with her child, Nour, inside the prison. Mervat was recently released with her son, Wa’el, now 2 years old has lived his entire life inside the prison. There are currently eight girls (under age 18) inside Israeli jails in addition to a number of women who have turned 18 while they were imprisoned. Israel detains children as young as 12 years old, in blatant contravention of the internationally accepted designation of any individual under the age of 18 as a child. Israeli military regulations stipulate that a child is anyone under the age of 16, whilst Israeli law stipulates this age to be under 18.

Many Palestinian women prisoners are transferred to Neve Tertza Prison, one of six sections of Ramleh Prison after their interrogation process. Here Palestinian female detainees remain detained within the same section as Israeli criminal female prisoners accused of crimes such as murder, theft, drug use, and prostitution. Mixing Palestinian prisoners with Israeli criminal prisoners has created a great deal of tension within the prison, particularly as political prisoners should be separated from other categories of prisoners.

The prison administration continues to humiliate Palestinian female prisoners by forcing them to strip in front of prison guards while their hands are cuffed, and then to dress before these same guards. The administration conducts regular searches of prison cells, confiscating personal property and papers.

The prison administration has diligently worked at breaking the unity of the female detainees by isolating them from the outside world and preventing family visits. Correspondence to and from the prison is also prohibited, and newspapers are allowed in the prison but are delayed by a few days. Visits amongst other prisoners are prevented and daily breaks have been reduced to half an hour. Palestinian women prisoners at Neve Tertza Prison reported that their conditions of detention were extremely difficult, with no glass protecting windows in the cells and insects and vermin found throughout the prison. Because of the prevention of family visits, prisoners do not have adequate winter clothing or extra food to supplement the small food portions they receive in prison.

Some Palestinian female prisoners have been arrested as a means of placing pressure on their husbands. Asma’ Abu el-Hayja, for example, who is 40 years old and is suffering from brain cancer, is being held in an administrative detention in order to pressure her husband who is also under detention. Mrs. Ablaa’ Saadat was arrested on 21 January 2003 as she travelled as a Palestinian representative to the World Social Forum in Brazil. Saadat is the wife of the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). She was give four months administrative detention following her arrest. She was told by an interrogator that her arrest was merely a demonstration that ‘they’ can do whatever they want. She was also told that if her husband had ‘blood on his hands’ they would kill her children.

Date of birth:

Place of residence: Abu Dis, occupied East Jerusalem

Occupation: Student

Date of arrest: 6 February 2010

Place of detention: Ofer Prison

Postal address: Ofer Prison, Givat Zeev, P.O. Box 3007, via Israel

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On 6 February 2010 Mohammad Halabiyeh, a 16 year-old Palestinian boy was arrested by the Israeli Border Police, in his hometown of Abu Dis. During the arrest operation, Mohammad broke his left leg, just above the ankle. Nonetheless, the soldiers beat him all over his body and intentionally kicked his injured leg. Torture and ill-treatment continued for five consecutive days following his arrest and reached its peak at the Hadassah hospital, where the Israeli soldiers pushed syringes into the boy’s hand and leg multiple times, covered his mouth with adhesive tape, punched Mohammad in the face, hit him in the abdomen with a stick and deprived him of sleep in an attempt to deter the boy from reporting the ill-treatment to the Israeli police. Mohammad was undeterred and made an official statement to his interrogator in which he attempted to describe the abuse and torture he was subjected to, even after the other interrogators threatened him with killing and sexual abuse. Mohammad is currently tried before the Israeli military courts on five charges related to throwing Molotov cocktails. He remains in Ofer prison in a section with adult prisoners. The next hearing in Mohammad’s trial is scheduled for 6 September 2010.

TORTURE AND ILL-TREATMENT DURING ARREST AND INTERROGATION

On the evening of 6 February 2010, Mohammad Mahmoud Dawoud Halabiyehwas walking with his friends Anas and Ayyad in their hometown of Abu Dis, an East Jerusalem neighborhood cut off from Jerusalem by the Annexation Wall. As they walked past the Israeli military camp near their town, they were surprised by an Israeli Border Police patrol coming from behind a nearby stand of olive trees. The soldiers kept their guns trained threateningly at the boys as they advanced towards Mohammad and his friends. When they reached the boys, the soldiers first seized Anas, who raised his arms in surrender. Petrified at their sight, Mohammad started running in the direction of his home. In the process, he jumped off an unfinished house and fell face first into a ditch approximately four to five meters deep, fracturing the tibia and fibula bones of his left leg, just above the ankle.

Soon after, one of the soldiers threw his steel helmet from above at Mohammad who lay injured on the ground and then worked his way down. When Mohammad told the soldier that he broke his leg, he did not believe him and instead started laughing and threw a sound bomb at him. Mohammad recalls, “I heard some laughing, and one of the soldiers looked at me, laughed and threw a sound bomb at me…The bomb landed almost one meter away from me.”The soldier then started beating Mohammad on his face and kicking him on his body as a group of other soldiers witnessed the scenes. Mohammad states in an affidavit given to Addameer, “When I cried out from the pain in my [injured] leg, one of them, with a dark complexion and black hair, twisted my leg in a painful way.”

The soldiers then forced Mohammad to stand, but as he was visibly limping, two soldiers assented to carrying the injured Mohammad. However, as they carried him, blows from the other soldiers and sexually degrading insults against Mohammad’s mother and sisters continued to rain down. Israeli soldiers and interrogators often psychologically abuse Palestinian detainees and deliberately exploit Palestinian society norms where women are traditionally given more protection and special status, while the preservation of their honor is of outmost importance.

After they arrived at the Israeli military base, the soldiers lay Mohammad on the ground and started shaking his leg while questioning him about his family and friends. They then reverted back to beating the boy until they forced him to sit on the ground, blindfolded him and handcuffed his hands to the front with plastic cuffs, which they tightened painfully.

The unrelenting physical and verbal abuse lasted about half an hour until a white private car arrived to take Mohammad to the Hadassah hospital, located in Mount Scopus in East Jerusalem. During the 40-minute drive, a soldier continued to punch Mohammad in the face and kick at his broken leg. Mohammad’s right eye became swollen from these punches.

Day One: Ill-Treatment by Israeli Soldiers at Hadassah Hospital

The abuse from the soldiers continued even after their arrival at the hospital where Israeli soldiers accompanied Mohammad during every stage of the medical examinations. After medical staff examined Mohammad, they took him in a wheelchair for X-rays of his leg. The soldiers continued to hit Mohammad whenever the doctor and other medical staff were away, in the X-room and in the patient room where they hid their actions behind a privacy curtain that they placed around Mohammad’s bed.

Mohammad recalls that the beatings, administered at this point with an “iron stick” by two Israeli soldiers from the Abu Dis base, one heavy and fair with a buzz cut and the other thin with dark hair, according to Mohammad’s description, were an attempt to coerce him to remain quiet about the torture he’d endured at the hands of the Israeli soldiers following the injury of his leg.

However, when Mohammad told the soldiers that he would disclose everything that was happening and tried to shout for the doctor, the soldiers covered his mouth with adhesive tape and handcuffed his hands to either side of the bed.

Later, when Mohammad was taken to have a plaster cast applied to his leg without the soldiers present, he told the doctor what was happening to him. The doctor told Mohammad to call him when the soldiers tried to abuse him again. Mohammad was then returned to a patient room and put in a hospital bed behind a curtain.

At that point, the two soldiers again put the adhesive tape on Mohammad’s mouth, repeated their threats not to tell anyone what had happened, and beat him with the iron baton, smeared a tomato they’d brought over his face and pushed syringes into his hand and leg multiple times.

Mohammad’s father Mahmoud arrived at the hospital around 11:00 p.m. that night after he received a phone call from the hospital. Before letting Mahmoud in to see Mohammad, the soldiers removed the adhesive on Mohammad’s mouth and covered him with a blanket. Mohammad told his father that the soldiers were beating him, and when the father asked the soldiers why they were doing this, they yelled at him and told him to leave and closed the curtain once again. Intimidated and scared that his intervention would only increase the abuse, Mahmoud left to bring Mohammad clean clothes. However, before he left the hospital, Mahmoud, used a visitor’s mobile phone, and called the Israeli police three times, asking their intervention with the soldiers so that they would stop beating his son. The police never came and the abuse continued.

Throughout the rest of the night, the soldiers remained in the hospital with Mohammad, twisting his injured leg and pressuring on the cast that had not fully dried by that point, hitting him with the iron stick in his abdomen and hands and punching the left side of his face, all while telling Mohammad they were going to deform his face and break his other leg. They refused to let Mohammad sleep and would hit him whenever he dozed off. The abuse and torture was intended to inflict so much pain and fear in Mohammad so that he would not complain to anyone about his experience.

Mohammad recalls that, “For long hours throughout the night, the soldiers used to ask me what I will tell the interrogator, if I would tell about what they did to me. I’d answer that I’d tell everyone about what they did. The beatings intensified all night long [...]”

Day Two: Torture During Transfer to the Police Station and During Interrogation

The following morning, on 7 February 2010, Mohammad was in severe pain, in particular in his injured left leg and the left side of his chin where he’d been punched repeatedly during the night. When Mohammad’s father returned with clean clothes for his son, he noticed how swollen Mohammad’s face had become from the sustained beatings. Mahmoud again approached the soldiers about the abuse against his son, but they told him “Gaway [‘Hijj’ in Arabic], or we will beat you too”.

Mahmoud helped Mohammad put on the clean clothes and then helped him walk outside, as he had no cane. While waiting for the military vehicle that would take Mohammad for interrogation, he told his father about the previous night’s abuses. The father was however refused to accompany his son to the interrogation center. Mohammad was then shuttled into the Israeli military vehicle where the soldiers tied his hands and covered his eyes with a cap, which they tightened around his face.

During the drive to the Ma’ale Adumim police station where Mohammad was to be interrogated, the police officers in the car continued to assault Mohammad and pressure him not to tell anyone the truth of how he’d sustained his injuries. At one point in the car, Mohammad vomited from the ongoing beating, though he’d not been given anything to eat since his arrest the previous day.

When they arrived at the Ma’ale Adumim police station, in the early afternoon, Mohammad was questioned for several hours by an Israeli interrogator. The interrogator accused Mohammad of throwing Molotov cocktails at Israeli military patrols and told him that his friend Anas had already confessed. He further mentioned that Anas told them that the three boys were on their way to throw Molotov cocktails when they were arrested the previous day in Abu Dis. The interrogator also said that Anas told them that Mohammad had thrown Molotov cocktails 15 times in the past. Mohammad denied the interrogator’s accusations.

The interrogator then began to write down a false statement himself, writing that Mohammad said he threw the Molotov cocktails, and tried to force Mohammad to sign the statement. Mohammad refused to sign. The Israeli officer began to threaten to beat and kill him. Then he told Mohammad that he would do ‘sexual things’ to him and that “he liked doing that to young boys”.

At 6 p.m. that day, more than 24 hours after Mohammad was arrested, he was finally given something to eat by officers at the Ma’ale Adumim police station. Mohammad gave a statement to his interrogators, reiterating his earlier denial of any involvement in throwing Molotov cocktails and seeking action for the torture he’d undergone at the hands of the Israeli soldiers since his arrest. No copy of this statement was recorded or provided during pretrial disclosure by military prosecutors.

Forced Confession

At 8:30 p.m. that night, after more than a day with little food and no sleep, Mohammad signed a confession claiming that he’d thrown Molotov cocktails. He later told his lawyer, Addameer attorney Mahmoud Hassan, that he had made this confession out of fear after numerous threats by his interrogators that he would be subjected to further torture if he did not. A video of the interrogation at this point shows the Israeli interrogator drafting the written statement of Mohammad’s confession, prompting a tired and fearful Mohammad, asking leading questions and feeding him the words the interrogator wanted him to say.

An additional problem demonstrated by the video is language. It is obvious from viewing the recording that the interrogator, called Avi Teveoni, did not have sufficient Arabic skills to question the boy and understand his version of events. On many occasions, the interrogator asked Mohammad to repeat his statement as he hadn’t fully understood the boy’s account. It is thus likely, that the interrogator made mistakes in the statement that he wrote, and by doing so, altered Mohammad’s statement. This is even more problematic when one considers that this statement serves as the primary evidence against Mohammad in his trial before the military courts.

Further, the written statement taken at this time was drafted by the interrogator in Hebrew, a language that Mohammad does not understand. The interrogation video, obtained by Adv. Hassan only after military prosecutors accidentally exposed its existence to him, reveals that the written statement omits most of Mohammad’s repeated references to the torture he endured at the hands of the Israeli soldiers in Abu Dis and at the hospital. The video also reveals that, although the interrogator indicated in the written statement that he’d read it aloud to Mohammad before Mohammad signed it, he did not.

Moreover, Addameer submits that even a cursory analysis of the written statement reveals the coercive role of the Israeli interrogators. At one point in the forced confession, for example, Mohammad says he threw Molotov cocktails with a friend in late 2009; that friend, however, has been detained by Israel since December 2008, so this could not possibly have happened. As Adv. Hassan notes when discussing the coerced confession, “When you’re afraid for your life, you will say anything, give any name to make the pain, or the fear of pain, stop”.

Day three: Transfer from Etzion Detention Center to Ofer Prison and Back to Eztion

That night, after seven or eight hours of interrogation, Mohammad was taken to Etzion Detention Center south of Bethlehem, to a cell holding a number of other detainees who were already sleeping. Mohammad recalls that the room was extremely cold, but the guards refused to give him a blanket when he asked. In the afternoon of the next day, on 8 February 2010, a doctor came, gave Mohammad a cursory medical examination and gave him a paracetemol tablet with a glass of water for his pain.

Afterwards, two Nahshon officers took Mohammad for transfer to Ofer Prison, housed in Ofer Military Base near Ramallah. Mohammad at this point was shackled at the wrists and had no cane, hopping painfully on his one good leg. Mohammad arrived at Ofer at around 7 p.m., but was made to wait inside the Nahshon transfer vehicle until midnight before the Nahshon officers came to move him into the facility. However, when the prison officer at Ofer saw Mohammad and the state of his injuries, he refused to admit Mohammad to the prison there, instead instructing the Nahshon officers that he should go first to a hospital.

Instead, however, the Nahshon officers returned Mohammad to Etzion, where the boy spent another cold night.

Day Four: Transfer Back to Ofer Prison

The following day, on 9 February, Mohammad was transferred back to Ofer, where he was held in a room with an iron grid, referred to as ‘the cage’. Later that day, Mohammad saw a prison doctor who promised to bring him a cane. That evening, prison officials brought Mohammad a pair of crutches, which he used for two days before obtaining a pair previously used by a friend from Abu Dis named Wael Younis who was also being held at Ofer.

Day Five: Mohammad Finally Receives Medical Treatment

On the fifth day following his arrest, Mohammad was taken to Hadassah Ein Karem, a hospital located in the southwest of Jerusalem. The physicians there took X-rays of Mohammad’s injured jaw and gave him medication for the pain and to promote healthy repair to the injured bone.

Mohammad was then returned to Ofer, where he remains at present. All motions to release him on bail were so far denied.

CHARGES AND TRIAL

On 16 February 2010, Israeli military prosecutors filed charges against Mohammad under the Israeli military orders that govern the OPT. Mohammad is accused of five offenses related to throwing Molotov cocktails in Abu Dis on a number of occasions between November 2009 and the date of his arrest in February.

Mohammad’s military court trial began on 12 April 2010 with the reading of charges and the entering of Mohammad’s plea and is currently underway at Ofer Military Court inside a military base near Ramallah. Mohammad’s defense counsel, Adv. Hassan, estimates his trial will take about two months. On 26 August 2010, Adv. Hassan filed a request to the Military Court to release Mohammad on bail until the conclusion of the legal proceedings. The next hearing in Mohammad’s trial is scheduled for 6 September 2010, where the prosecution’s third witness, a police officer, is expected to testify before the court.

POLICE INVESTIGATION INITIATED INTO ABU DIS SOLDIERS

The Israeli police initiated an investigation into the soldiers who arrested Mohammad based on the boy’s statement given on 7 February 2010, before Avi Teveoni, one of the interrogator at Ma’ale Adumim police station. In this statement, Mohammad mentions several times the type of abuse and ill-treatment he was subjected from the Israeli soldiers. This information was however concealed from Adv. Hassan who learned about the police investigation accidentally, on 9 August 2010, when he questioned a police officer, who testified before the court as a military prosecution’s witness at Mohammad’s last hearing. Subsequently, Adv. Hassan requested from the military prosecution and the military court to see the investigation materials. The request was noted in the hearing’s protocol and the judge promised to make these documents available “as soon as possible”. More than two weeks later, the information related to the police investigation has not been disclosed to Adv. Hassan.

Importantly, Addameer also requested Mohammad’s medical file by submitting an official letter to the Israeli Prison Service, on 17 July 2010. The report, which was only disclosed to Addameer attorneys on 28 August 2010, approximately 40 days following the request, omits the initial medical report which would have been written and filed on the day of Mohammad’s arrest and hospitalization, 6 February 2010. Instead, the first report included in the file is dated 10 February 2010 and confirms the tibia and fibula bone fractures in Mohammad’s lower left leg. There is no mention however, of any marks, bruises or wounds following the beating, punches, kicking and pain administered by pushing syringes into the boy’s body, which Mohammad reported to Addameer and his interrogators. Addameer strongly condemns the concealing of medical files that could constitute evidence in the investigation against the Israeli Border Police guards who abused and ill-treated Mohammad.

FAMILY/PERSONAL INFORMATION

Mohammad is one of nine children. During the first four months following Mohammad’s arrest, he did not receive a single visit from a family member. This situation is not unusual, given that Israeli authorities seek to isolate prisoners during the initial period of detention and, for this reason, typically do not issue visit permits. As the use of telephones is also not permitted for Palestinian “security” detainees, Mohammad had virtually no contact with the outside world apart from meetings with his attorney. He was able to see his parents at court hearings only, but not speak with them, given that the Israeli authorities forbid any form of contact between the detainee and his family inside the military court.

Since the first visit on 9 June 2010, Mohammad’s mother, Yusra, and father, Mahmoud, have been able to visit him in detention at Ofter three times, as family visits at Ofer prison are allowed only once a month. By comparison, the other Israeli prisons holding Palestinian detainees permit family members to visit every two weeks. None of the boy’s three brothers or five sisters have been able to visit thus far.

At the time of his arrest, Mohammad had completed grade 11 and was working part time in a restaurant in Abu Dis.

ADDAMEER’s STATEMENT

Addameer condemns Mohammad’s torture and ill-treatment at the hands of Israeli authorities as a violation of absolute prohibitions against these measures in international law, violations that are made all the more heinous due to Mohammad’s young age. Moreover, Addameer remains very concerned about the legitimacy of Mohammad’s ongoing trial before the Israeli military courts, as it remains clear that these courts operate in blatant disregard for fundamental international fair trial standards and lack any sort of meaningful protection for child detainees.

Addameer therefore calls for the charges against Mohammad to immediately be dropped, for those responsible for his torture and ill-treatment to be investigated and prosecuted. Addameer also calls the international community, EU member states in particular and relevant UN bodies to pressure Israel to conduct a thorough and impartial criminal investigation into the conduct of the soldiers who tortured and abused Mohammad Halabiyeh and bring the perpetrators to justice. At the same time, Addameer contends that it is very unlikely that such an investigation will be initiated without the needed political and diplomatic pressure given that the Israeli authorities have consistently failed to and indict its soldiers involved in criminal offenses against Palestinian civilians in the OPT.

Criminal investigation of members of the security forces who commit offenses against Palestinians and their property in the West Bank, ranging from manslaughter to abuse to looting, is under the responsibility of the Military Advocate General (MAG), the Military Police Criminal Investigation Department (MPCID) and the Department for the Investigation of Police Officers in the Ministry of Justice. These law enforcement agencies have been under severe criticism for their investigation of suspects and prosecution of members of the security forces accused of such offenses. The concealing of the initial medical reports and the investigation into the soldiers’ conduct from Adv. Hassan only demonstrates this trend. According to Yesh Din, during the years of the second intifada, 90 percent of MPCID investigations ended with the files being closed and without indictments being filed. Addameer therefore urges foreign government officials, including members of foreign representative offices to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and foreign Consulates in East Jerusalem, as well as the Office of EU Representative in Israel and the OPT, human rights organizations and United Nations bodies to:

• Raise Mohammad Halabiyeh’s case with the Israeli authorities;
• Demand that the Military Police Criminal Investigation Department conducts an impartial and independent investigation into the soldiers actions;
• Demand that the Israeli Ministry of Health conducts an independent and impartial investigation into events that occurred at the Hadassah hospital;
• Raise Mohammad Halabiyeh’s case to the attention of the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, in accordance with various human rights monitoring guidelines, including the EU Guidelines on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment;
• Attend Mohammad Halabiyeh’s court hearings at the Israeli Military Court.

In addition, Addameer also urges solidarity groups and human rights organizations to:

• Send Mohammad letters of supportto his postal address in prison;
• Write to the Israeli government, military and legal authorities and demand that Mohammad be released immediately, that the charges against him be dropped and that an independent and impartial investigation of the soldiers who subjected Mohammad to torture and ill-treatment be conducted; or,
• Write to your own elected representativesurging them to pressure Israel to release Mohammad and to call for an independent and impartial investigation of the events surrounding his arrest be immediately conducted.

For more information about Addameer’s work to stop the torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody, please visit our website www.addameer.info, or contact us directly:

Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association

Tel: +972 (0)2 296 0446 / 297 0136

Fax: +972 (0)2 296 0447

Email: info@addameer.ps

Website: www.addameer.info

]]> http://addameer.info/?feed=rss2&p=1782 http://addameer.info/?p=1780 http://addameer.info/?p=1780#comments Wed, 18 Aug 2010 12:57:52 +0000 addameer http://addameer.info/?p=1780 30/7/2010

TOTALS

*UCL stands for Unlawful Combatant Law

Nighttime raids, pointed guns, arrests often accompanied by beatings, kicks, curses and painful and extended handcuffing. The ordinary behavior of Israeli children in uniform.
Children in the West Bank throw stones at army vehicles and Israeli cars, mainly those belonging to settlers. That is the undeniable truth. Throwing stones is the classic way of telling the occupier, who is armed from head to toe, that he has forced himself on the occupied. Sometimes it’s part of a sweeping resistance movement, sometimes it’s a ceremonial remnant of such a movement, not devoid of braggadocio and adolescent boredom, while also a reminder to adults not to adapt.

The armed occupier bellows that this is violence, an offense just a step away from firearms. The violence of the occupier is the norm that no one questions, so much so that it becomes invisible. Only the response to that norm is presented and perceived as criminal, and the occupying nation wallows pleasurably in its eternal victimhood to justify its violent actions.

The army, especially the military justice system, has abundant means to deter young people from taking part in those ceremonies to ward off adjustment. Nighttime raids, pointed guns, arrests often accompanied by beatings, kicks, curses and painful and extended handcuffing. The ordinary behavior of Israeli children in uniform, completely normative. From the frightening conditions of such arrests, Palestinian children are taken straight to interrogation. This, too, involves intimidation, threats and sometimes a blow, sometimes temptation: Admit that you threw stones and we’ll let you go. Because detention until the end of legal proceedings might be longer than the sentence itself, sometimes it’s preferable to admit to something you did not do.

Eight 16-year-old students at the El-Arub agricultural school refused to be part of the statistic of confessions under pressure in the so-called military justice system. Three soldiers who arrested them in October 2008 testified to the police that their detainees had thrown stones on Route 60, and the soldiers caught them on the road after chasing them. The indictments were tailored to the soldiers’ account of events.

But the truth was that the teens were pulled out of their classrooms by soldiers who drove into the school compound. The police did not bother to question the principal and his teachers, the prosecution did not append corroborating evidence to the “stone-throwing incident” (such as documentation of the incident by the police or an army war room ). And still, the military judge extended the remand of the eight teens until the end of the proceedings. A soldier’s word against the word of a Palestinian boy.

The appeals judge was somewhat discomfitted by the vague testimony the soldiers gave the police and ordered the boys released on very high bail. The military prosecution tried, as usual, to get the defense attorney (from the Ad-Damir human rights group ), to sign a plea bargain (you confess, we’ll ask for a suspended sentence and a fine ), to save everyone’s time, especially the court’s. The boys were adamant in their refusal. The three soldiers, therefore, had to testify in court after they were warned to tell the truth, and they were very unconvincing.

On July 12, after almost two years of “wasting the court’s time,” the prosecution asked that the indictments be dropped. According to the IDF Spokesman’s Office, “there was no determination by a court of law that the soldiers lied in their testimony,” which is true, and that “in agreeing to drop the indictment there is no implication regarding the credibility of the soldiers’ testimony.” Sure.

Indeed, the soldiers acted the way many had acted before them. What they did is not devoid of the adolescent braggadocio that their society accepts affectionately and leniently. In particular, they are obeying unwritten orders to deter potential activists against the occupation. Blows, twisting the truth and intimidation are all part of the system they did not invent.

On the way [to the detention center] the soldiers started beating me with a stick. They tightened the iron cuffs around my hands which caused me great pain. They also burnt my hands with cigarettes

Emad Shab

Date of birth: 2 January 1993
Age at arrest: 17
Date of arrest: 21 February 2010
Place of residency: Hebron
Place of detention: Ofer Prison, section 13
Postal address: Ofer Prison, Givat Zeev, P.O. Box 3007, via Israel
Number of administrative detention orders: Three
Charges: None

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ARREST AND INTERROGATION

Emad Al-Ashhab, 17, left his family home in Hebron in the early hours of 21 February 2010 to accompany his father to Al Khan Al-Ahmar, a Bedouin area between the Israeli settlements of Maale Adoumim and Kfar Adumim. Emad had been regularly helping his father who works at an Israeli printing house after he dropped out of school a year and a half prior to his arrest.

At approximately 9:30 a.m. the bus carrying Emad and his father reached the Container Checkpoint located on the Wadi Nar road between Bethlehem and Ramallah. The Israeli soldiers manning the checkpoint were stopping every car that morning, checking everyone’s identity cards and searching cars. Eventually, the soldiers stopped Emad’s bus. They asked to see all passengers’ identity cards. After a few minutes they asked Emad to get off the bus and without providing any explanation, they took him to a provisional detention room located at the checkpoint. Emad’s father waited three hours without being informed of the reasons for his son’s detention. Each time he made an attempt to inquire about his son’s well-being, the soldiers ignored his questions. Eventually, at approximately 12:30 p.m., Emad’s father decided to leave the Container Checkpoint and continue towards his work to alert a human rights lawyer of his son’s arrest.

Emad was kept, without food or water, in the provisional detention room at the Container Checkpoint until 1:00 p.m. During this time, he was not allowed to use the bathroom once. He was told to wait in a chair with both his feet and hands shackled. At 1:00 p.m., Emad was transferred to a different location but was not informed where. In an affidavit given to Addameer attorney Anan Odeh, Emad reported that during the transfer to the undisclosed location the Israeli soldiers covered his face with a woolen bag and beat him with a stick all over his body while both his hands and feet remained shackled. The soldiers also burnt his hand with cigarettes while they tightened the shackles around his wrists. From the first undisclosed location, Emad was then transferred to a second detention center, but again was not informed of its name or location. Later that evening Emad was transferred for a third time, and at approximately 7:00 p.m., he arrived in Etzion Detention and Interrogation Center near Bethlehem. At this point, he was allowed to use the bathroom for the first time all day.

Emad was held at Etzion for five days; during this period he was also taken to Ofer Military Base near Ramallah for interrogation sessions. Officers from the Israeli Security Agency (ISA) questioned him during these sessions about his political affiliations, but Emad denied all of the interrogators’ suspicions. Under the Israeli military orders that govern the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT), membership in an organization – be it a political party or a charitable organization – that is declared illegal by the Israeli military commander is considered an offense and is classified as a “hostile terrorist activity”.

At no point during the interrogation process was Emad accompanied by either his legal counsel or a parent, a right which the Israeli authorities routinely deny to Palestinian children arrested under the military regulations. On the fifth day of his interrogation, Emad was handed his first administrative detention order, informing him that he would be held without charge or trial.

ADMINISTRATIVE DETENTION

Number of order renewals: Two
Number of days held without charge or trial: 164 and counting

Emad’s first administrative detention order was set for a six month period. At the judicial review of the order, the judge of the Military Court of Administrative Detainees in Ofer Military Base confirmed the order as drafted. Emad’s legal counsel, Advocate Anwar Abu Amer, appealed the judge’s decision. The administrative detention order was then shortened to two and a half months at the appeal hearing. However, on 6 May 2010, the expiration day of the first order, Emad’s administrative detention was renewed for a further six months. At the judicial review hearing for the second order, it was shortened to a three month period ending on 4 August 2010. Adv. Abu Amer subsequently filed a second appeal, but it was denied. A few days before the expiry of the second order, Emad’s administrative detention was renewed again. During the judicial review of the order on 4 August, the military judge confirmed Emad’s administrative detention for a period of three months, setting his possible release for 3 November 2010.

DETENTION CONDITIONS & HEALTH CONCERNS

Emad suffers from Erb’s Palsy, a partial paralysis of the arm caused by injury to the arm’s main nerves following a shoulder dislocation at childbirth that requires ongoing rehabilitative therapy. When he was younger, Emad followed the therapy at a hospital, but, over time, his mother took over these responsibilities and even undertook special training in order to be able to massage his arm whenever necessary. This sort of specialized physiotherapy is not available at the prison’s clinic and Emad suffers from pain in his arm as a result of his lack of treatment.

There is no special section for child detainees at Ofer Prison. Neither is there a special section for administrative detainees, who according to both international and Israeli law should be held separately from convicted prisoners. Emad is currently held in section 13 at Ofer and shares a room with both adult detainees who are awaiting transfer to their detention facility and convicted prisoners.

FAMILY VISITS

During the first three months following Emad’s arrest, he did not receive a single visit from a family member. This situation is not unusual, given that Israeli authorities seek to isolate prisoners during the initial period of detention and, for this reason, typically do not issue visit permits. As the use of telephones is also not permitted for Palestinian “security” detainees, Emad had virtually no contact with the outside world apart from meetings with his attorney.

After his initial three months in detention, Emad has been able to see his father, 52, and mother, 44, only twice as family visits at Ofer prison are allowed only once a month. By comparison, the other Israeli prisons holding Palestinian detainees permit family members to visit every two weeks. During the last visit, which took place in July, Emad was also able to see his youngest brother, Ahmad, aged 10.

Administrative detention is a procedure that allows the Israeli military to hold detainees indefinitely on secret evidence without charging them or allowing them to stand trial. In the occupied Palestinian West Bank, the Israeli army is authorized to issue administrative detention orders against Palestinian civilians on the basis of Military Order 1591. This order empowers military commanders to detain an individual for up to six months renewable periods if they have “reasonable grounds to presume that the security of the area or public security require the detention.” On or just before the expiry date, the detention order is frequently renewed. This process can be continued indefinitely.

ACT NOW!

Here is how you can help Emad Shab:
•    Send Emad letters of support to his postal address in prison
•    Write to the Israeli government, military and legal authorities and demand that Emad Al-Ashhab be released immediately and that his administrative detention not be renewed.
•    Write to your own elected representatives urging them to pressure Israel to release Emad Al-Ashhab and to put an end to such an unjust, arbitrary and cruel system of incarceration without trial.

For more information about administrative detention and Addameer’s Campaign to Stop Administrative Detention please visit our website: www.addameer.info

By Amira Hass
8 August 2010
Haaretz

Eight Palestinian teenagers were tried in the court of military judge Lt. Col. Menashe Vahnish on November 11, 2008. Referring to a soldier from the Kfir Brigade, Vahnish said, “at this stage, there is no reason to cast any doubt on the witness.” According to his police testimony, on October 30, 2008 the soldier, T.M., and some of his comrades apprehended stone-throwing Palestinian 16-year-olds on a road that runs between the al-Aroub refugee camp south of Bethlehem and an agricultural school across the way.
Vahnish also saw no reason to doubt the accounts given by two other soldiers from the Kfir Brigade company, L.G. and G.D., whose statements to the Etzion police formed the basis of indictments submitted by the army prosecutor against the Palestinians. Under the indictment, the eight teenagers hurled rocks “from a distance of about 20 meters at Israeli cars traveling on Route 60, with the intention of harming the vehicles or their passengers.”
Following their apprehension, the judge ordered that the teenagers, all of whom are students at the al-Aroub agricultural school, remain in custody until the end of their trial. Extending remands (i.e., keeping suspects in jail until the end of legal proceedings ) is almost always a default option favored by the Israeli military court in the West Bank, whose sole defendants are Palestinians. When detainees are suspected of minor offenses (such as stone throwing or demonstrating ), and especially when they are minors, the length of time they are held in custody often exceeds the maximum possible prison term. Therefore, defendants often feel pressured to reach a deal with the prosecution and plead guilty, even when they are not or when the evidence is weak. But this time, the pressure evidently did not work.
In their police accounts, the soldiers stated that they chased the stone throwers and caught those who did not manage to escape to the school grounds. The pupils, on the other hand, claimed they had been inside their classrooms and that some of them were even taking exams, when three regular army jeeps and one large (”Ze’ev” ) jeep suddenly burst onto the school compound. According to the Palestinian witnesses, the vehicles tore down a fence and then soldiers leapt out and whisked about 20 students out of their classrooms.
Vahnish gave little credence to arguments made by defense attorneys Mahmoud Hassan and Nasser Nubani. Their case depended largely on what they described as a clear photograph from October 30, taken by a pupil, showing a group of 20 students sitting on a low stone fence, without handcuffs or blindfolds, in the schoolyard. The eight defendants were selected out of this group of 20, claimed Hassan, from the Addameer Prisoners’ Support and Human Rights Association.
Hassan submitted an appeal, and the eight teenage defendants spent another nine days behind bars before judge Lt. Col. Yoram Haniel, from the military appeals court, decided to release them on bail.
“Basically,” Haniel stated, “the army prosecutor is basing his position on statements made by three soldiers who were responsible for the arrests under appeal. Unfortunately, the soldiers have not detailed what occurred, nor have they provided a detailed description of how they managed to bring all of the appellants to court.”
The appeals judge ordered each youth to provide, in cash, NIS 7,500 as bail. For all eight of the defendants, whose parents were already hard-pressed to cover their journey to the military appeals court session in Ofer, this was an impossibly exorbitant sum. But the Ramallah-based NPO Addameer managed, in this particular case, to obtain a loan from the Palestinian Authority treasury and post their bail. Five days after Haniel handed down his decision, the teenagers were released; they had been in custody for 27 days.

Routine pressure
After the suspects were released, Hassan told Haaretz, the army prosecutor began the typical routine of pressuring him to sign a deal. Hassan relates how the prosecutor’s representatives told him, “We want to end this matter quickly. We will demand only a fine and a suspended sentence. It’s a shame to waste the court’s time, and your own time. What else could you want, [the eight defendants] are released and you’re wasting time over nothing.”
Hassan rejected the offer, saying his clients should not be branded with a criminal record for the rest of their lives for a crime they did not commit.
Between 15 and 18 sessions on the case were then held at the military court in Ofer. The soldiers were questioned about their statements to the police, and more photographs were submitted.
On the day of the arrests, the soldier G.D., for instance - who had served in the Kfir Brigade Haruv company for 15 months - told the police: “Today, over the course of patrol activity, we received a report that there was stone throwing in the region of al-Aroub. I arrived on the scene with a back-up squad… We immediately identified the group of stone throwers, located 30 meters away. Its members were hurling stones at Route 60. In our vehicle, we proceeded to chase the stone throwers at a moderate speed; when we were a few meters away from them, they began to flee in the direction of the school. At that point, we got out of the army vehicle and started to chase them on foot. We were able to detain some of the stone throwers, while others managed to escape into the school.”
Along with the police questioner, this soldier entered the Etzion station yard where he pointed to three of the detainees, including Nasser Badran Jaber, “who was wearing a black jacket, blue jeans and had light brown hair.” The police officer asked the soldier if he was certain that those he had identified had in fact thrown stones. “Doubly sure,” G.D. responded. The policeman then asked whether the soldier had kept the suspects in his sight from the time they had thrown the stones until their apprehension. G.D. said that he had.
On January 28, 2010, G.D. left his base in the Jordan Valley to testify in the Ofer courtroom. Hassan asked him: “Is it true that, along with the rest of the force on the scene, you entered the schoolyard?” G.D. replied: “I never went in. I stayed with the detainees.” Hassan: “So you stayed in the army vehicle?” G.D.: “Yes.” Hassan: “So, who entered the yard?” G.D.: “I don’t know anything about soldiers going in.” Hassan: “You said that you caught somebody on the road, not in the schoolyard. Can you tell me who, among the defendants, this was?” G.D.: “No, I can’t recall.” Hassan: “I’m telling you that you have made false statements right now, because all of the defendants were detained in the school, not on the road. What do you have to say about this?” G.D.: “I am testifying about what I remember, and that’s what happened. I recall that there were three [suspects] with me in the vehicle. I recall that they were involved in stone throwing; perhaps I did not see them throw stones, but they were in the group that fled.” The exchange between Hassan and G.D. continued:
Q. When you reached the road, you saw people throwing stones. That was beyond the road, correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Did any cars pass by at this time?
A. I imagine so, because this is the main road.
Q. But you yourself did not see a car pass by, or the suspects throwing any rocks at it?
A. I did not see a car hit by a stone. I don’t entirely recall whether there was stone throwing at this time.
Q. You received a report that people were throwing stones, and you arrived a short time after the rocks were hurled. But you didn’t see any stone throwing yourself?
A. I saw rocks being thrown in the direction of the road, and the moment we arrived [the throwers] fled.
Q. So if you saw stones being thrown, did you also see where they landed?
A. That’s a very specific question. This occurred a long time ago.

‘Tossed like garbage bags’
The teenagers continued to plead innocent. In July 2010, after the defense attorney announced his intention to bring schoolteachers in as witnesses, the military prosecution asked to rescind its indictment. The military judge had no choice but to declare, on July 12, that the indictment had been overturned.
Nasser Jaber, from Hebron, told Haaretz this week that he and the other suspects were held for a day before being brought to a cell at the Etzion police department. Over the course of this day, he said, they were insulted, slapped and kicked.
“We were handcuffed and blindfolded, and the soldiers threw us like garbage bags to the floor of the jeep,” he related. “They kicked us during the car trip. Then they tossed us, face down, like garbage bags, from the jeep to the ground; some of us were injured.”
During the remand hearing, “all of the defendants sobbed, except Nasser,” Jaber’s mother related. Some of them fell ill while in custody. Two dropped out of school as a result of the emotional strains and steep financial costs connected to the detention and trial. All refused to sign a plea bargain.
Along with the eight defendants, there was another detainee involved in the case - a young man about four years older than the other suspects. He denied all charges during the police interrogation and the court remand hearing.
In a prior case, when he was 14, he had been convicted on a stone-throwing charge and a shooting charge, which left him with a conditional arrest sentence of 30 months. That is why Haniel ordered him to remain in custody until the end of the court proceedings.
On May 4, 2009 he decided that his wisest course was to plead guilty of throwing stones on the date in question. The day he reversed his plea, he was released. The judge announced that they had worked out a plea bargain, according to which the man’s sentence was equivalent to the number of days he had been held in custody; he was also fined NIS 500. He had been convicted on the basis of testimony from the same soldiers whose testimonies could not sustain the charge sheets of the eight teenagers. His friends spent one month in jail, while he lost six months there.
He lost but the court gained: The judge in his case, Lt. Col. Shmuel Kedar, seemed satisfied with the plea bargain. “The sides justified the arrangement by pointing to the defendant’s past record, his admission of guilt and saving the court’s time,” he said.
The IDF spokesman released the following statement in reply: “It bears mention that there is no court determination that the soldiers lied in their accounts, and the agreement to overturn the indictment has no implication with regard to the reliability of the soldiers’ testimony… Perjury in military trials is a serious offense, and appropriate legal measures are taken in response to it. Decisions concerning detention are reached in a professional, direct manner, according to appropriate standards and rules accepted in Israel’s legal system. The prolongation of legal processes for one reason or another can justify the release of detainees, for this reason only and in appropriate cases.”