Evidence lost in ‘Wedding of Hate’ trial

Monday, October 22, 2018, 14:30 During the course of an October 22 Jerusalem Magistrates Court deliberation on the evidence in the ‘Wedding of Hate’* case, after investigations by the defense attorneys on the admissibility of the evidence in the case, the Attorney General’s office admitted that the original recordings of the wedding have been lost.
The loss of the recordings, which the police had confiscated by court order, casts doubt on the continuation of the trial and on the ability of the State of Israel to convict the defendants in the case. At the deliberation Honenu Attorneys Adi Keidar, Moshe Poleski, David HaLevi and Avichai Hajbi represented the defendants.
Honenu Attorneys: “To our astonishment, we learned during the deliberation that the original video clip of the wedding had been lost. We also became aware that the GSS has been involved with obtaining and also publicizing the video as a media spin in an attempt to divert attention from the severe treatment by the GSS of the detainees interrogated in the Kfar Duma trial. The information currently becoming known casts a heavy shadow on the continuation of the case.” See here for details of the severe treatment, including torture, of detainees under interrogation by the GSS.
In a recent case a detainee in the ‘Wedding of Hate’ case was awarded 10,000 NIS in compensation for false detention, in addition to legal expenses and attorney’s fees.
* At a December 2015 wedding participants were seen waving and slashing photographs of the infant who died in the July 2015 arson incident in Kfar Duma. The wedding became known as the ‘Wedding of Hate’.