Ofer - Administrative Detention, Disturbances (demonstrations)

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Observers: 
Vivi Sury, Nitza Aminov (reporting)
Nov-13-2019
|
Morning

Translation: Marganit W.

 

The Wonders of Administrative Detention

 

Plea Agreement in the case of

Muhannad Sameer Abd Al Aziz Hamad

 

Judge: Major Merav Berkovitz Yitzhaki

Defense: Atty. Hafez Bournat

 

Muhannad Hamad is 19 years old now, but the court pointed out his extensive activity that started in 2015.

 

The prosecution claims that he participated in a march in Silwad demanding the return of corpses to the village. He is accused of being a member of the Popular Front [for the Libertation of Palestine] and that he took part in many marches, throwing rocks and Molotov Cocktails.

And yet, in the plea agreement only one charge remained: “ During December 2015 he threw rocks at security forces in entrance of the village during disturbances (a euphemism for demonstrations – N.A.)

 

The sentence included 6 months and a day of prison time, starting on 16.9.19 and 6 months probation for 3 years.

 

Arguments for the plea bargain: “4 years passed during which no additional indictments were filed – even though Hamad was under protracted administrative detention.”

However, administrative detention requires no indictments, thus today’s decision included the phrase “considering his clean record”.

 

Back to the title: during the time of the alleged violations, Hamad was a minor; subsequently he was put under administrative detention for a year and a half!

 

The judge, as is her wont, told the father, who was present at the hearing, to keep an eye on his son. The father told the court that they have family in the US and that Muhannad plans to go there.

 

On 8.8.19 the soldier Dvir Sorek was killed in a terrorist attack. Subsequently many in the village of Beit Kahal were arrested. Charges were pressed against 5 men and one woman. Their families were also notified about plans to demolish their homes.

We attended the hearing of

Inas Asafra.

She was represented by Atty. Adnan Odeh.

Atty. Odeh claimed that much of the investigation material was missing from the file. The indictment had been filed on 7.9.10, so there is no justification for keeping the investigation report from the defense.

Some details are confidential, so they require the prosecution to obtain a “certificate of confidence” in order to conceal them from the defense, something that has not been done in the past.

Atty. Odeh also claimed that there is no list of accumulated investigation files, something that makes it very difficult for the defense to manage the case.

The judge ordered the prosecution to produce a “certificate of confidence” by the next hearing and to transfer the list of assembled material to the defense.

The indictment against Inas Asafra includes the charge of “non-prevention of a crime”. According to the prosecution, Inas’s husband Kassam told her that he intended to stab Jews, as he did in Beer Sheba in 2001. She did not report this to the police.

Another charge includes: harboring a felon and disruption of investigative proceedings. The claim is that she aided her husband in concealing a knife.

Obviously, the rule that prevents spouses to testify against each other does not exist in the military courts.

 

Inas’s father died at age 45. Her paternal grandmother and the father’s brother attended the hearing. The tearful grandmother told Vivi that Inas’s two small daughters are now living with her.