Amiram Ben Uliel; Photo credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI/POOL
Thursday, October 29, 2020, 14:03 Amiram Ben Uliel filed an announcement with the Supreme Court informing them that he is appealing the verdict and the sentencing handed down to him by the Central District Court in Lod. Additionally, Ben Uliel requested an extension for filing the justification for his appeal, which he requires in order to form his defense team and for them to study the case and compile all of the material.
In May 2020, Ben Uliel was convicted of murdering three members of the Dawabshe family in Kfar Duma in July 2015. After the verdict was handed down, in light of new evidence, Ben Uliel requested that a witness be summoned to give testimony in court. The request was granted, however the evidence was rejected in September 2020. The Central District Court in Lod handed down to Ben Uliel three life sentences and an additional 17 years’ imprisonment. One of the specific decisions that Ben Uliel is appealing is the court ruling that some of his confessions are admissible in court, despite the torture he had undergone while under interrogation. The court ruled that he had been tortured, but rejected only some of his confessions and not all of them as a whole.
From the request to the Supreme Court: “The defense team has not yet been formulated, representation of the appellant has not yet been arranged, and efforts are being made to formulate a defense team suitable for the case. Therefore it is necessary to allow the defense sufficient time to examine and study the material in order to present appropriate claims. To that end to court is requested to allow claims in the appeal to be submitted within 90 days.”
Demonstration of torture methods; Photo credit: Otzma Yehudit
Friends of Ben Uliel: “Ben Uliel is innocent, and this will be proven in the Supreme Court. We are currently forming a defense team of legal experts who will reveal the truth, and the only conclusion which arises from the testimonies and the evidence: Ben Uliel has no connection to the incident in Duma. Eye witnesses describe a different incident [than that which is described in the indictment]. The findings at the scene, tire marks and foot prints, do not correspond to the conviction. The graffiti at the scene does not match Ben Uliel’s handwriting. And there are many more flaws in the investigation and evidence which contradicts [the description of the event in] the conviction. We call on the GSS to reveal the videos of the torture Ben Uliel experienced so that the public will see what they did in the interrogation rooms all night long until he screamed in pain what the interrogators wanted him to scream. At the Supreme Court it will all be revealed and Ben Uliel will be released to his home.”
Ben Uliel is being held under under extremely severe conditions in the Eshel Prison in outside of Be’er Sheva in southern Israel: solitary confinement, no telephone calls, and the only visits he is allowed with his wife and daughter are once very two weeks for half an hour, behind glass.
Since the July 2015 arson attack on the Dawabshe family’s house in Kfar Duma, Honenu has assisted many Jews accused of involvement with the crime. For a selection of posts describing Honenu Attorneys’ representation of defendants and GSS interrogatees, see here. To familiarize our readers with the case, Honenu has gathered – see here – various articles and short videos on the subject.