Minor awarded 6,500 NIS compensation

Wednesday, February 28, 2018, 8:58 At the Geulat Tzion outpost a minor was detained on suspicion of violating a demarcation order forbidding entry to a specific area and was interrogated at the police station very late at night. The police did not release him to his home at the end of his interrogation because they intended to bring him to a court deliberation in the morning in order to demand a release condition of distancing from Yehuda and Shomron. The minor was left to sleep at the station in poor conditions. In the morning he was brought before a judge and taken through the corridors of the courthouse while handcuffed and leg-cuffed.
At the deliberation which took place at the Jerusalem Magistrate Court Judge Ophir Yehezkel awarded 6,500 NIS in compensation to the minor. “It is not appropriate to delay the release of a detainee whom the police intend to conditionally release, only because the conditions are dependent on the authority of a judge,” ruled Judge Yehezkel and added that there had been no justification to keep him in remand under conditions which were not pleasant, to say the least.
Judge Yehezkel also ruled that because people from the general public are present in the courthouse corridors, “One must regard the courthouse as a public place,” and therefore a less demeaning method of restraint should have been considered. Also, “The claim that the restraint was not necessary and that there were grounds to avoid it, or at least that partial restraint would have been sufficient, should be accepted.”
Honenu Attorney Menasheh Yado, who represented the minor in the suit, stated that, “The verdict, and also a long list of complaints and suits we have filed, should be made known and the norms of reasonable police conduct with Jewish youth in Yehuda and Shomron should be internalized.”