GSS holding three detainees, two have not met with an attorney

Thursday, May 15, 2014, 10:09 Four youths have been detained since Sunday, May 11 by the GSS. In an unusual step two of them have been prevented from meeting with an attorney.
On Sunday, May 11 three youths were detained, one of whom was released by the following morning. The other two are an 18-year-old Yad Binyamin resident and a 16-year-old resident of a community in the Talmonim Bloc. The adult has been prevented from meeting with an attorney since the moment he was detained and on Wednesday, May 14 GSS investigators extended the ban by an additional 48 hours.
On Wednesday, May 14 the Jewish Department of the GSS detained a 16-year-old Jerusalem resident and took him to the GSS facility in Petah Tikva. He is being prevented from meeting with an attorney.
A gag order has been placed on the details of the case, however the court has permitted publication of the charge on which the three detainees have been detained: suspicion of carrying out a “Price Tag” incident.
Initially neither the families of the detainees nor their attorney were informed of where they were taken and with what they were charged. After several hours the detainees were located in the GSS facility in Petah Tikva and Honenu attorney Adi Kedar requested a meeting with them. The investigators refused to allow the detainees to meet with Kedar, stating that there is an official order banning them from meeting with an attorney.
This type of order is most unusual and in the past when the police or politicians requested use of such an order, and additional administrative orders, against detainees suspected of organized crime and dealings in the criminal underworld, the request was denied by the Attorney General and others in the Justice Ministry on the grounds that the orders were disproportional and severely violated the rights of the detainees.
Only on Monday, May 12, 24 hours after the detention was attorney Barak Friedman, who is representing one of the detainees on behalf of Honenu, allowed to meet with the 16-year-old minor from the Talmonim Bloc. The other two detainees still have not met with an attorney.
On Monday the first two detainees were brought to the Petah Tikva Magistrate Court where Judge Merav Greenberg extended the remand of the adult by eight days and that of the minor by four days.
Honenu filed an urgent appeal on the ban on meeting with an attorney and on the remand extension of the adult. On the morning of Thursday, May 15 the Lod District Court will hold a deliberation on the appeal. Also on Thursday a deliberation will take place on the minor from Jerusalem detained the previous day.
Honenu would like to point out that recently the GSS and the police have begun to increasingly prevent detainees from meeting with an attorney. In the decisive majority of cases the detainees have been released without any evidence connecting them to a “Price Tag” incident being presented.
Honenu responded, “Unfortunately we see again that the authorities are simply conducting themselves with hysteria. Applying laws and sub-clauses which are meant for terrorists in the most rare of circumstances to the case of Jewish minors in a consistent methodical manner with no proportionality, indicates that someone in the system decided to stretch the book of law to its very limit, and only against Jews.”
Attorney Barak Friedman, who is representing one of detainees on behalf of Honenu stated that, “An investigation in which a suspect is denied the basic right of meeting with and consulting an attorney, is not only a violation of the basic rights of the detainee, but also a violation of the democratic values on which the legal system was founded in the State of Israel.”
Honenu attorney Adi Kedar, who is representing two of the detainees, responded: “We regard with severity the use of the extreme measure of preventing a meeting between a detainee and his attorney, especially when it is done for invalid reasons relating to political decisions and public opinion and not on legal grounds.”