“GSS hasn’t learned anything”

Sunday, January 6, 2019, 15:37 The attorneys representing the minors suspected of throwing a rock at a car near Rechalim made a statement to the press at the Rishon LeTzion Courthouse.
The attorneys leveled criticism at the GSS investigation and revealed what the minors had suffered during their remand and interrogations. Honenu Attorney Adi Keidar: “My client is a minor. He does not have a criminal record. No evidence was presented to him. From morning until evening he was shackled to a chair. He slept on a mattress on the floor, in a small cell with a squat toilet. The youth with whom I met was tired, broken and exhausted. He is not connected in any way to the incident.”
Attorney Itamar Ben Gvir: “First, with regards to the publication by the GSS, the case is crumbling, and they are rushing to make announcements. This is outrageous. Only two days ago publication was damaging to the security of the State, and suddenly the gag order is lifted. The GSS knew very well about the press conference. Is the GSS afraid of the it?
“I met with my client. They [the GSS] haven’t learned anything. What happened before is what’s happening now. Only a week ago confessions extracted by undercover agents who pressured a detainee to talk were invalidated by the Central District Court. And now they used the same method again. This is a scandal. The GSS interrogators have not learned a thing.
“They used obscenities, spoke in sexually explicit language about women, which bordered on sexual harassment, to wear down my client. What do the GSS interrogators have against women?
“The detainees underwent exhausting and grueling interrogations. They showed my client no consideration, they spit on him and they used physical force.
“If we are interested in a democratic state, in a state of law, someone must stop the way that the GSS personnel conduct interrogations. We call on the Prime Minister to stop this, not through the Military Secretary [Brigadier General Avi Blut], who isn’t stopping it, but rather he himself.”
Honenu Attorney Adi Keidar added: “While we are still here, we must remember that there are two minors who are still prohibited from meeting with an attorney and their condition is unknown. I call on the Prime Minister to release the detainees, to allow the minors to meet with an attorney and to put a stop to this.”