Honenu Attorney Nati Rom; Photo credit: Honenu
Friday, June 23, 2023, 14:11 Earlier today (Friday), the Jerusalem Magistrates Court rejected the request by the GSS and the Yehuda and Shomron Police to extend the remand of three detainees who are being interrogated by the GSS by 10 days. The remand was extended until Monday only. The detainees are friends of the Eli terror attack murder victims. At the beginning of the hearing, GSS representatives requested a gag order on the case. Following opposition from Honenu Attorneys Adi Keidar and Nati Rom, the court imposed a gag order on only the details of the investigation. The detainees have not yet been allowed to meet with their attorneys and their status is unknown.
At the hearing, the representative of the police and the GSS refused to answer whether or not they were investigating acts of violence by Arabs against Jews or disturbances caused by Arabs. After the detainees’ attorneys pressured him, the representative said that the Arabs involved in their cases had not been investigated under warning.
Attorney Rom stated, “Unfortunately, we have again been informed of three outrageous detentions by the GSS and the Yehuda and Shomron Police. Some of the detainees do not have a criminal record and none of them have been allowed to speak to an attorney. Their fundamental rights have been severely violated, and I will add that for hours they did not allow us to counsel the detainees, despite the lack of an order prohibiting us from doing so. It is very unfortunate that the GSS and the police are using extreme means on Jews, including residents of Yehuda and Shomron, instead of eradicating terror. We see terrible things happening in other sectors, such as the use of illegal weapons, but in neither the north nor the south of Israel are detainees prevented from meeting with an attorney.
“We estimate that the administrative orders and false detentions are a media show in preparation for administrative detentions. It is regrettable that security forces are being turned on Yehuda and Shomron residents instead of terrorists. We saw photographs from northern and southern Israel of people, including police officers, opening fire illegally, and nobody was detained under such severe conditions. We are pleased that the Honorable Judge Gioia Skappa-Shapiro accepted our claims, because the detainees were not allowed to make any claims because they have not yet been interrogated. We have demanded to meet with the detainees and we hope that we will soon,” added Attorney Rom.
The three detainees, one of them married, are all in their 20s and friends of the Eli terror attack victims. They were detained on Thursday evening in the Shomron by Yehuda and Shomron Police detectives and transferred to a GSS facility for interrogation. As of now, none of them has met with an attorney, and their status is not known. Honenu Attorneys Nati Rom and Adi Keidar are representing the detainees. Currently, a hearing is being held at the Jerusalem District Court on the urgent appeal against the prohibition to meet with an attorney.