District court releases Ofra detainees

Sunday, March 5, 2017, 10:36 On Friday, March 3, Lod District Court Judge Ya’akov Sheinman accepted Honenu Attorney Chai Haber’s pleas and rejected the appeal by the police on the release of the Ofra detainees. The police demanded that the court order five out of the ten detainees who were detained on the last house destroyed in Ofra on Wednesday, March 1, to house arrest. The Petah Tikva Magistrate Court had ruled to distance them from Ofra without house arrest.
Judge Sheinman ruled that in both the deliberation at the magistrate court and in the deliberation over which he presided on Friday, the police did not present, “reasons for investigating or suspecting the detainees of interfering with [proceedings] which justify leaving the suspects under house arrest.”
The judge also noted that the incident was filmed from many angles and that the violations attributed to the detainees of disturbing a policeman in the line of duty and violating a legal order by sitting on the roof and refusing to leave it, are not violations which constitute suspicion of posing danger.
Nonetheless Judge Sheinman did raise the bail, on which the guarantors of the detainees signed, from 5,000 NIS to 15,000 NIS.
Honenu Attoney Chai Haber: “There is a reason for the inability of the police to explain their demand to keep the youths under house arrest. I am pleased that again the court has proven that depriving an individual of his freedom is not a trivial matter and has accepted our opinion.”