Detainee in Duma Case Claims Torture During Interrogations
Right-wing activists and police clashed at the entrance to Jerusalem during a demonstration against the continued detention of Jewish youth for alleged involvement in the firebombing of a Palestinian home.
The demonstration on Sunday night came a day after hundreds of protesters demonstrated in front of the home of Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen over allegations that the security service is torturing the suspects in order to extract information from them.
On Sunday, one of the minor detainees, a resident of the West Bank who was arrested three weeks ago, reportedly told a judge during a closed hearing at Petah Tikvah Magistrate’s Court that the torture was so bad that he tried to commit suicide in prison.
“Every day it goes up a level … I didn’t sleep last night and I won’t sleep tonight either, unless something changes. They are violently questioning me about something I can’t help them with, because I don’t know. They are taking me apart, bending my whole back, laughing and looking at me with contempt. The hell with it, what am I supposed to do?” the suspect reportedly told the judge, according to Haaretz.
“They yell at me, ‘Murderer, murderer!’ Where can I run? Where is their doubt that maybe I’m actually right? This is the worst injustice the State of Israel can do to a person,” he also reportedly said.
The Shin Bet denied the torture allegations and said that its investigations “are conducted in accordance with the law.” It said that the claim that one of the Jewish detainees attempted suicide is “baseless,” according to Haaretz.
The judge on Sunday ordered the remand for the teen to be extended.
On Sunday, the Shin Bet announced that there had been a new “development” in the investigation into the July 31 arson attack in the West Bank Palestinian town of Duma that left three members of one family dead in what is believed to be an attack by right-wing extremists. No other details were disclosed by the Israeli media, since a gag order has been placed on the investigation. Indictments are expected to be filed this week, according to reports.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO