One of the GSS detainees still barred from meeting with attorney

Monday, May 12, 21:08 Two young men were detained by the GSS on Sunday, May 11. There is still a gag order on the details of the case. In an unusual step one of the youths still has not be allowed to meet with an attorney. Honenu’s response: “Someone in the system decided to stretch the book of law.”
The two young men were detained on the morning of Sunday, May 11 by GSS agents and the police. One of them lives in the town of Yad Binyamin and the other, a minor 16 years of age lives in a community in the Talmonim Bloc. A third youth was detained with them and released later the same day. There is still a gag order on the details of the investigation and the accusations on the detainees.
Initially neither the families nor the attorney of the detainees were informed as to where they were taken and on what charges they were detained. After several hours Honenu attorney Adi Kedar located them at the detention center of the GSS in Petah Tikva. Kedar requested a meeting with them, which was denied. He was informed 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, 24 hours after the detention of the 16-year-old minor, was he allowed to meet with attorney Barak Friedman, who is representing him on behalf of Honenu. The other remaining detainee, an adult, is still being preventing from meeting with an attorney.
The two detainees were brought to the Petah Tikva Magistrate Court on the morning of Monday, May 12 and their remand was extended by Judge Merav Greenberg. The remand of the adult was extended by eight days and the remand of the minor by four days.
On Tuesday, May 13 in the afternoon a deliberation will take place at the Lod District Court on the appeal filed by Friedman on behalf of Honenu on the ban of meeting with an attorney placed on the adult.
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 the two 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.”

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