Kfar Duma case torture methods revealed by GSS interrogators

Wednesday, June 6, 2018, 17:53 At 11:00 on Thursday, June 7, the torture methods used in the Kfar Duma trial will be revealed in a display at HaBima Square in Tel Aviv. On the basis of eye-witness reports from GSS interrogators, friends of the defendants in the case will demonstrate how suspects have been tortured during the case.
Passersby will be invited to experience the torture methods in order to understand what the defendants in the Kfar Duma case have undergone. “Tomorrow we will arrive in Tel Aviv. We invite Tel Avivians to taste a bit of what the defendants in the Duma case have undergone in the GSS dungeons. The entire display and the torture that will be demonstrated on site are exactly as the GSS interrogators described them in court deliberations,” said Tzvi Sukkot, the director of Otzma Yehudit, which is in charge of the display, and added that the public will be shocked.
In a related event, on the morning of Tuesday, June 5, dozens of prominent rabbis, including heads of yeshiva, wrote a letter to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, demanding that the legal proceedings in the Kfar Duma case be stopped and that an investigative committee be founded. The grounds for the demand are the torture which the defendants in the case underwent in order to extract from them forced confessions.
Excerpt of the letter, translation by Honenu:
“Prime Minister, Justice Minister… In light of the shocking information concerning the torture of youths in order to extract from them confessions of the involvement with the Kfar Duma incident, and the severe indictments filed against them based on those confessions, we demand that the legal proceedings against them cease immediately, and that an independent investigative committee be founded in order to examine these grave accusations.”
Additionally, on April 16, the families of the defendants in the Kfar Duma case revealed that during the closing statements stage of the first segment of the trial, which took place on March 15, the Central District Attorney’s office announced in an unprecedented step that they would withdraw from use several of the defendants’ confessions. The confessions were given during interrogations in which “special means”, a euphemism referring to torture, were used on the defendants.
A source in the legal system well acquainted with the case explained that “The meaning of the announcement by the Central District Attorney’s office to the court, is the understanding that in light of the circumstances under which the confessions were given by the defendants, it is impossible to render them judicially valid. This is an upheaval. The Attorney General’s office is essentially standing opposite the court and admitting that in this case interrogations were conducted that brought the defendants to make statements and confessions that were not out of free will, as is mandatory by law.”
The Attorney General’s office also submitted a request to the court to recognize the torture used during interrogation as legal.