Minors’ rights violated during intensive ISA interrogation

Thursday, July 14, 2016, 10:59 The Natzrat Magistrate Court extended until Sunday, July 17 the remand of two 15-year old minors suspected of involvement with an incident of “nationalistic crime”. Arab cars were set on fire in Kfar Yafia and the suspected motive is a reaction to the recent terror attack in the Sarona Complex in Tel Aviv in which four Jews were murdered and others injured.
The police and the ISA have partially lifted the gag order placed on the case and allowed publication that the two minors detained in the case on Sunday, July 10 have admitted to carrying out the vehicular arson. The third 15-year old minor detained on Monday, July 11 will be held in remand until Friday, July 15. He is also suspected of involvement with the incident.
All three minors were not allowed to meet with an attorney until Wednesday, July 13, at which time they met with Attorney Lior Bar-Zohar, who is representing them on behalf of Honenu. They told Bar-Zohar that they had been intensively interrogated and that their rights had been violated.
Attorney Bar-Zohar stated that, “The intensive, heavy-handed interrogation combined with the prohibition on meeting with an attorney, and the fact that the detainees are normative minors who have never before been detained casts a grave doubt on the admissions which the police attribute to them. We expect the court to carefully examine the admissibility of the admissions and whether or not they correspond with reliable evidence or if they were obtained through manipulations and threats by the ISA interrogators and the police.”