Sunday, March 13, 2022, 9:30 At 13:00 on Sunday, March 13, an administrative detainee who has been held by the GSS for three weeks will be brought to a hearing at the Central District Court in Lod. Honenu Attorney Adi Keidar, who is representing the detainee, will demand his immediate release.
The Haifa Magistrates Court ruled that the incident was neither nationalistically nor racially motivated, and therefore the GSS should not be investigating it. At the hearing, the judge stated, “In the material before me, there is no evidence that the suspect was involved with an assault on Arabs. It appears that the crime is that of assault and of intentionally causing damage to the vehicle belonging to the activist, and on the face of it there are no racially motivated crimes, which on the face of it obviates the involvement of the General Security Service in the investigation, and the incident should be investigated as every regular criminal incident is investigated.” Investigation of criminal incidents lacking racial or nationalistic motivation is handled by the Israel Police, not by the GSS.
On Saturday night, after Shabbat, dozens of the detainee’s friends protested opposite the home of Defense Minister Gantz in Rosh HaAyin. The demonstrators called on Minister Gantz to release the detainee from remand.
Keidar made a statement prior to the hearing: “We regard with severity the conduct of the Attorney General’s office, the police and the GSS. Time after time the detainee has been brought to court, and we even reached the point where they declared that they would indict him, that the evidence was closing in on him, and that there was enough evidence to indict him. On Friday, it turned out that they had misled the court, and this is not the first time. We are of the opinion that under these circumstances, due to the incident at hand not being connected in any way, shape, or form, to either the GSS, or to a nationalistically or racially motivated incident, there were no grounds to serve this detention order. We will demand that the Central District Court cancel it immediately.”
The authorities attempted to attribute to him the crimes of arson and assault. Initially, for approximately one week, the detainee was under an order prohibiting him from meeting with an attorney. Afterwards the GSS interrogations continued for another two weeks, at the end of which the Attorney General’s office declared their intent to indict the detainee. On Friday, after they were unable to file an indictment due to lack of evidence, Defense Minister Benny Gantz signed an administrative order extending the detainee’s remand by two months, without any legal proceedings being undertaken against the detainee.