Court ruled: Police demand rejected, demonstration detainees to be released

Wednesday, November 19, 2014, 20:46 A heated deliberation took place on the evening of Wednesday, November 19 in the courtroom of Jerusalem Magistrate Court Judge Dov Pollack. The police brought two demonstrators who had protested the previous evening in front of the office of the Minister of Internal Security in Jerusalem against the security situation.  The police requested a five-day remand extension and also filed a plaintiff’s affidavit on behalf of the Attorney General’s office stating that an indictment will be filed against the demonstrators for assaulting policemen and rioting.
The two demonstrators are brothers in their 20’s from Beitar Elite. They accuse the policemen of assaulting them. They are being represented by Honenu attorney Hur Uriel Nizri and by attorney Itamar Ben-Gvir.
During the deliberation Nizri presented as evidence the bruises on the body of one of the detainees, who suffered various injuries including a possibly fractured shoulder and injuries to his knee and arm. Nizri stated that when he arrived the previous evening at the Lev HaBira Police Station to brief the dozens of detained demonstrators he demanded that the police investigator call a doctor to examine two of the detainees, however the investigator claimed that the injuries did not necessitate a doctor’s examination, a judgment which is not under his authority to make.
Additionally Nizri mentioned that dozens of detainees were released at the station and only these two and one other detainee were brought to the deliberation. According to Nizri the police wanted to blur the fact that these demonstrators were severely assaulted by the police.
At the end of the deliberation Judge Dov Pollack accepted the attorneys’ pleas, rejected the police demands and ruled that there is a contradiction in the testimony of one of the policemen which is the main testimony in the case. Judge Pollack ruled that the two brothers would be under a restraining order banning them from Jerusalem for five days and ordered the detainees released.
The police announced that they would appeal the decision with the Jerusalem District Court and requested a delay in carrying out the release until the deliberation on the appeal the following day.
“The policemen severely beat the two detainees and did not allow them to see a doctor in accordance with the opinion of the investigator at the station,” said Honenu attorney Nizri. “Dozens of detainees were released at the station. The detainees who complained of assault by the policemen were not released and a plaintiff’s affidavit was filed against them extremely quickly. The court has already given its opinion on the contradiction in the main testimony in the case. The court’s disapproval of the police conduct is evident in the decision not to extend the remand by several days until an indictment is filed, and later until the end of proceedings, as requested by the police. The court decided to immediately release the two with a minor restriction of a ban on entering Jerusalem.”
Additionally the Yitzhar resident detained on Tuesday, November 18 during a demonstration at the entrance to Shechem protesting the security situation, was released the following day. The court rejected the police demand of a restraining order banning the Yitzhar resident from Yehuda and Shomron for five days and posting bail, and ordered a restraining order banning him from entering the town of Hawara and the area of the Shomron Territorial Brigade base for 30 days. Honenu attorney Adi Kedar represented this detainee.