Attorney General’s office cancels hearing

Wednesday, January 6, 2016, 18:09 After being interrogated for a month by the GSS on suspicion of involvement with the Kfar Duma case, a minor is scheduled to be served on Wednesday, January 6 with an indictment for involvement with an incident unconnected to the case. During the the tortuous interrogations he underwent which included having his head sharply pulled back, being shaken and sleep deprivation, he admitted to being involved with an attack on an Arab shepherd 18 months previously.
On Tuesday, January 5 another minor was served with an indictment for the same incident, that took place when he was 14 years old. The minor denies involvement with the incident and is currently under house arrest.
Despite a declaration by the the Attorney General’s office that a hearing would be conducted before indictments were filed, the Attorney General’s office chose not to allow a hearing to be held and filed indictments in an expedited procedure. The house arrest of one of the minors in the case was extended after the declaration was made.
On Tuesday, January 5 the Jerusalem District Court accepted the appeal filed by Honenu Attorney David HaLevi and ordered the house arrest canceled. The judge ruled that Jerusalem Magistrate Court Judge Gioia Skappa-Shapiro’s ruling on the continuation of the house arrest, which was presented as a condition for a hearing, be canceled, and wrote that, “I have not been presented with a satisfactory explanation for linking the right to a hearing with leaving the defendant under condition of house arrest.”
In response to the cancellation of the condition, the Attorney General’s office rushed and filed the indictment within three hours, despite the commitment to holding a hearing. Following the filing of the indictment the house arrest was renewed until a deliberation on the evidence in the case could be held.
On Wednesday, January 6, Honenu Attorney David HaLevi leveled strong criticism at the Attorney General’s office: “This indictment completely lacks a foundation based on evidence. It was filed in blatant violation of a commitment by the State to hold a hearing for my client before serving him with an indictment. Unfortunately the impression given is that the Attorney General’s office is losing its senses and has chosen, in a heavy-handed step, to file an indictment in an extremely expedited procedure, without any basis or connection to reality, and despite the young age of my client, who was 14 years old at the time the incident supposedly occurred, approximately a year and a half ago. It seems that the step which the Attorney General’s office chose to take stems only from the fact that yesterday the court accepted our position on the appeal we filed and canceled the house arrest my client was serving.”