Court unconditionally released Yitzhar detainees and ruled: there was no cause for arrest

Friday, July 1 12:58 Four settlers were arrested yesterday during the conflicts that broke out between Yitzhar residents and Arabs from the town of Hawara following the violent car theft from a female resident of Yitzhar that occurred in Hawara.
Three of the detainees were arrested after a protest by Yitzhar residents at the Hawara junction, as they walked near the access road to Yitzhar. The police kept the three in remand overnight and in the morning requested that the court release them on condition of a restraining order distancing them from Arab plantations near Yitzhar and a bond of 1,000 NIS.
Honenu attorney Adi Kedar, who represented the detainees, claimed during the deliberation that there was no cause for their arrest and that the rights of one of the detainees, a 15 year-old minor, for whom this is his first arrest, were violated by the police investigators who refused to allow him to speak to an attorney and also refused to allow his parents to be present during investigation, as is mandatory by law.
The Petah Tikva Magistrate Court Judge Zecharia Yemini accepted attorney Kedar’s argument and ordered the immediate unconditional release of the detainees. The judge ruled that there had been no cause to arrest the three being as there was no reasonable suspicion that they had committed a crime. Judge Yemini also reprimanded the police for even making the arrest and for violating the rights of the minor, and wrote in his decision that the decision of the duty officer to order the arrest of the three for no reason is difficult to understand in his eyes.
Honenu attorney Kedar, who represented the detainees, responded to the decision and said that, “We are surprised each time anew by the record depths to which the Ariel police reach. The court ruled that the arrest of the three was without cause. In my humble opinion, if my clients filed personal suits against those responsible for their arrest – as the court said it is difficult to understand the decision of the duty officer for their arrest – they could bring to an end the unacceptable phenomenon of false arrests in the Yehuda and Shomron district.
Overnight another youth who had been arrested near the Lehava neighborhood of Yitzhar after border policemen claimed that he had approached Yitzhar from the direction of the plantations of the town of Hawara that earlier had been burned, was released at the police station.