Police attempt to manipulate court ruling

Sunday, January 22, 2017, 20:35 In a deliberation which took place at the Jerusalem Magistrate Court on Friday, January 20 a minor who had been detained in early January on suspicion of intending to injure Arabs was released by agreement with the police. The minor had been interrogated by the Department of Nationalist Crimes in the Central Unit of the Yehuda and Shomron Police and there is a gag order on the details of the investigation. The ISA had detained many individuals in the case, all of whom were released approximately one week after detention.
During his remand the minor was brought time after time to deliberations at the Petah Tikva Magistrate Court. On Tuesday, January 17 the Petah Tikva Magistrate Court Judge ordered his release to house arrest. The police appealed to the Lod District Court, which accepted the appeal and extended the remand until Friday, January 20. On Friday the police filed a plaintiff’s affidavit, indicating that they intend to file an indictment against the minor, and also brought the minor to a court deliberation and requested a remand extension. However they brought him to the Jerusalem Magistrate Court, not the Petah Tikva Magistrate Court which had been judging the case.
During the deliberation Honenu Attorney Avichai Hajbi, who represented the minor, explained that the police had tried to manipulate the decision by bringing the minor to the Jerusalem Magistrate Court, which is not authorized to rule on the remand extension request, instead of the Petah Tikva Magistrate Court, which had already ordered his release. Hajbi pleaded that the request must be filed with a Petah Tikva court and that a Jerusalem court does not have the authority to judge the case due to the absence of local jurisdiction.
Jerusalem Magistrate Court Judge Miriam Kaslasi halted the deliberation and demanded that the police representative clarify the matter. After clarification with the Attorney General’s office the police representative announced that he was willing to release the minor to house arrest.
Honenu Attorney Avichai Hajbi: “There is a limit to every ruse. It turns out that the Central Unit of Yehuda and Shomron Police goes ‘shopping’ between the Jerusalem and Petah Tikva Magistrate Courts. The Jerusalem Magistrate Court would take no part in the ruse of the investigating unit who brought a detainee before it in the hopes of a getting a remand extension for a detainee whose release the Petah Tikva Magistrate Court had already ordered. I hope that the representatives of the Central Unit of the Yehuda and Shomron Police will study the words of the judge and stop conducting themselves in violation of the law.”