Yitzhar minor still wandering from host to host

Wednesday, July 20, 2016, 16:22 The prosecution complained that the Yitzhar minor’s attorney updates the police concerning the minor’s address for the night by SMS and not by fax.  Judge Nurieli: “The court remarks that it feels as if it is in a day-care center.”
The case of the Yitzhar minor under house arrest at night continues to make headlines. The main reason for the attention is the rare situation in which a 15-year old has been distanced from his home without formal criminal proceedings.
Due to the forced wanderings of the minor from host to host every other night, two weeks ago the Central District Court in Lod ruled that the minor’s attorney would update the prosecution concerning every change of address.
The prosecution opposed this arrangement and stated in court that because of the need they see for the Jewish Department of the ISA to examine every address at which the minor stays, the house of the prosecutor has “turned into a war room”, as he described it, because he needs to make many phone calls every afternoon in order to examine every suggested address. The Central District Court in Lod ruled on an arrangement according to which the minor’s attorney informs the police by 15:00 by fax where the minor is staying that night. However the prosecution claims that sometimes the attorney sends an SMS and sometimes is a bit late.
On Tuesday, July 19 a deliberation was held on the minor’s case at the Petah Tikva Magistrate Court, during which the prosecution complained that the minor’s attorney, Honenu Attorney Chai Haber, sent an SMS to the prosecution instead of a fax as is written in the decision of the Central District Court in Lod, and demanded that the court order that the minor stay at one permanent address.
Haber explained that due to the frequent and disruptive police checks at the minor’s host families it is very difficult to locate families willing to host him. In order to facilitate examining the addresses Haber sends a message directly to the prosecutor instead of or in addition to sending a fax to the office of the prosecution.
Judge Erez Nurieli, who ruled on the prosecution’s demand, stopped the deliberation after the prosecutor finished speaking and wrote in the court records a very unusual statement: “The court remarks that it feels as if it is in a day-care center.”
The Judge Nurieli rejected the prosecution’s demand for a permanent address for the house arrest and ordered the continuation of the conditions set by the Central District Court in Lod. The minor may continue to change his address every other day.
Honenu Attorney Chai Haber, who is representing the minor, said that, “The deliberations surrounding the order distancing the Yitzhar minor from his home and rendering him a ‘vagrant’ living off of the kindness of others, forced to live on the street, not in school, breaks new records. After all the magistrate court which announced already at the beginning of the deliberation that it does not see any cause to change the district court’s decision in any way, was convinced that the police demand was out of place and chose to remark to the police that he feels as if he is in a day-care center. The ‘surprise’ came from the police, when the prosecutor himself admitted that he felt the same way. Here one wonders who is really pulling the strings behind the scenes and acting indirectly, all for the purpose of making the life of the minor miserable and violating his rights.”

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