Another GSS detainee released from severe remand conditions

Tuesday, May 27, 2014, 11:58 After over two weeks of being held in remand and interrogated under most severe conditions in a GSS detention center an 18-year-old suspected of involvement in a “Price Tag” incident was ordered released from remand by the court on Tuesday, May 27. The youth lives in a community in the Nahal Sorek region and has been released to house arrest until Sunday, June 1, by request of the police investigators who asked that he be conditionally released. Honenu attorney Adi Kedar represented the youth.
“This is a decisive defeat for the Jewish Department of the GSS,” said Kedar in response to the release. “After a long period of time, during part of which he was banned from meeting with an attorney, the second detainee held in the GSS detention center who suffered severe abuse during his interrogations has been released. Two suspects have been released without an indictment being filed against them and thus have fallen flat all of the assertions made by the interrogators, who apparently presented a distorted picture to the court, which erroneously agreed time after time to extend the remand.”
Honenu notes that from the moment of his detention on May 11 until the day of the detainee’s release, May 27, the GSS and police investigators refused to reveal to Kedar what the specific charges against the detainee are. For 11 days the detainee was prevented from meeting with an attorney, a most unusual measure generally reserved for terrorists.
After the detainee was allowed to meet with Kedar it became known that he had been subjected to severe abuse at the hands of GSS interrogators who interrogated him for 21 hours a day, including on Shabbat. Additionally during one of the interrogations he was choked by an interrogator after he dozed off. During another he fainted when an interrogator screamed in his ear after he dozed off due to the severe physical conditions in which he was being held. A medic was rushed in to treat him.
On Monday, May 26 his remand was shortened after Kedar filed an appeal with the Lod District Court.
The youth joins a minor recently released after being detained and held by the GSS for nine days, also on suspicion of involvement with a “Price Tag” incident. He was banned for eight days from meeting with an attorney and initially not informed of what the specific incident with which he was suspected of being involved was. When he was informed he immediately gave an alibi which was verified, leading to his release.