العربية
HE
العربية
HE
Each year, hundreds of Palestinian teenagers in the West Bank are arrested from their homes in the middle of the night and taken handcuffed and blindfolded to interrogation facilities. The Israeli security forces use night arrests as the default method for bringing Palestinian minors in for interrogation. These arrests entail extensive violation of the minors’ rights and can also be accompanied by violence on the part of the arresting force. Thus in the following case; for over two years the victim, who meanwhile became an adult, has been demanding to bring to justice those members of the security forces who treated him with cruelty and brutality during his arrest and interrogation:
On September 1, 2019, at around 03:30 a.m., Israeli Border Police officers raided the home in Jenin of 17-year-old KA, beat him and arrested him without letting him say goodbye to his family. He was shackled so tightly it was painful, and his requests to loosen the ties were answered with curses and even beatings. At the interrogation facility, he was put in a solitary confinement cell and kept there completely alone for over 24 hours. The cell was extremely cold, and contained a mattress on the floor and a single, insufficient blanket. Only at around noon the following day, KA was let out of the cell and taken to interrogation. His rights were not explained to him, he was denied the right to counsel, and neither of his parents was present during the interrogation. KA was subjected to an Israel Security Agency (ISA) interrogation for about a week, during which his hands were cuffed behind his back. After each interrogation session he was sent back to the solitary confinement cell, where he spent most of each day, completely cut off from any human contact except for wardens and interrogators. Only on the 7th day (KA estimates), was he allowed to shower. Moreover, in the last interrogation of that week, an interrogator not only shouted at him, as previously, but also threatened to shoot him. On the following day he was sent to a different facility, where he was kept for two days together with “informers” – as an interrogator told him when he was transferred back to the interrogation facility. After two more days in the interrogation facility, he was sent to Megiddo prison.
HaMoked, acting on the youth’s behalf, sent the military a complaint regarding his treatment during the arrest, which was then transferred to the Police Investigation Unit (PIU) after it turned out the arresting force belongs to the Border Police. In the complaint, HaMoked clarified that violence during arrest and en route to the interrogation facility was in fact a recurring problem. In August 2020, PIU announced that the case had been closed because “the overall circumstances of the matter do not warrant opening an investigation, as this is an incident for which a criminal proceeding is not a suitable framework for examination”. In December 2020, HaMoked filed an appeal to PIU regarding the closure of the file, and argued that the investigation materials it had received indicated, among other things, that no effort had been made to contact the arresting border police officers and record their version of events. The appeal was transferred to the State Attorney’s Office Appeals Department, which rejected the appeal about a year later, on December 27, 2021.
Therefore, on February 10, 2022, HaMoked petitioned the High Court of Justice (HCJ) against the Police Investigation Unit (PIU), the State Attorney’s Office Appeals Department, the Attorney General of Israel, and the Israel Police over the unreasonable closure of the complaint investigation file. HaMoked argued the decision must be reversed, especially in light of the fact that this was a complaint of a minor regarding his alleged subjection to cruel, inhuman and humiliating treatment by police officers. HaMoked demanded that the respondents clarify why they had refrained from conducting basic investigative actions before they decided to close the case and why they had not exercised their authority as required by law to speedily and efficiently investigate the minor’s complaint. HaMoked argued that the prolongation of the investigation process raised concern that the investigators had not handled the matter with proper seriousness, and thus frustrated the opportunity to conduct an effective investigation.
HaMoked also pursued accountability for the ISA interrogation of the youth. On February 6, 2022, HaMoked filed an appeal to the Ministry of Justice’s Supervisor of the Inspector for Complaints of ISA Interrogees (whose Hebrew acronym is MAVTAN) against the decision not to open an investigation into the ISA’s conduct in interrogating the minor, who, according to his affidavit, had been treated – as in other similar cases – like an adult interrogee and subjected to prohibited means of interrogation. The appeal was prompted by HaMoked’s examination of the – very partial – investigation materials obtained from the MAVTAN, which clearly indicated several ingrained systematic flaws which undermine the possibility of thoroughly examining such complaints.
It should also be noted that the minor’s initial complaint of February 2020 was submitted as part of a broader complaint regarding the ISA’s wrongful manner of interrogating minors. In November 2020, in response to a similar complaint HaMoked filed on behalf of another minor, the Supervisor of the MAVTAN announced that HaMoked’s principled complaint had been transferred to the Criminal Law Unit in the Ministry of Justice’s Consultation and Legislation Department. The latter provided a response to HaMoked on February 9, 2021, stating that no grounds had been found to consider the matter.
