The soldier; Photo credit: free use
Monday, June 5, 2023, 8:19 On Sunday, June 4, the Hadera Magistrates Court rejected a request by the GSS and the Israel Police to extend the remand of four detainees, one of them a soldier, and released them to house arrest. They were detained on suspicion of involvement in an altercation with Arabs in Hadera in mid-April. Initially, the GSS banned the detainees from meeting with an attorney and interrogated them under severe conditions.
Honenu Attorney Assaf Gonen, who represented the detainees, reacted to the court’s decision and said, “The Hadera Magistrates Court did well to release all of the detainees from remand. The detainees, among them a soldier in mandatory service, are normative individuals who were held in remand for almost two weeks under extremely severe conditions disproportional to the offenses of which they were suspected.”
Honenu Attorney Avraham Sofer, who also represented the detainees, further commented on the court’s decision: “The detainees were unnecessarily held in prolonged remand. Other than the soldier, the detainees were caused significant financial damage. We are pleased that the court accepted the claims that we presented at the beginning of the investigation. This is a clear example of a case that began with a loud fanfare and is ending with a whimper. The police and the GSS negligently dragged out the investigation, assuming that the court would accede to repeated requests for remand extensions. We are pleased that the court rejected the request by the police and the GSS and released our clients to house arrest. We will continue to follow the case until its closing.”