Israel Frees French- Israeli Lawyer After 13 Months Without Trial

  • 10/1/2018
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Israel released on Sunday a French-Palestinian lawyer held without charge for the past 13 months over unspecified allegations, his lawyer said. Salah Hamouri, 33, was freed at Jerusalem police headquarters after being brought from his cell in a prison in southern Israels Negev desert. Attorney Mahmud Hassan told AFP that under the terms of his release Hamouri was forbidden to take part in any celebrations, demonstration or protests for a period of 30 days and required to post a bond of 3,000 shekels ($825, 700 euros). He was arrested at his home in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem on August 23, 2017 and subsequently interned under what Israel calls administrative detention, which allows detention without trial for renewable six-month periods. Neither suspects nor their lawyers are informed of the reasons for arrests and Israels Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency had no immediate comment when asked by AFP for the reasons behind Hamouris detention. A day after his release, Hamouri recounted in an interview with FRANCE 24 the abuses suffered by Palestinians under Israeli administrative detention. “It’s a collective isolation of Palestinian political prisoners, it’s a slow brainwashing by the Israelis…by denying them [the prisoners] access to books, to the TV, to the news, and with no chance to continue their education. It’s really a system, a program to undermine, to break the morale of the political prisoners,” explained Hamouri from Jerusalem. “To date, I don’t know why I was in detention for 13 months. It was a file that neither I, nor my lawyer, had access to. It was a file made by Israeli intelligence that said that I was a danger to Israel. But there were no charges… it was totally arbitrary,” he added. French President Emmanuel Macron and Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian had discussed his case several times with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to the French foreign ministry. Israel says administrative detention is intended to allow authorities to hold suspects while continuing to gather evidence, with the aim of preventing attacks or security offenses in the meantime. But the system has been criticized by Palestinians, human rights groups and members of the international community who say Israel abuses the measure. Hamouri was born in east Jerusalem to a French mother and a Palestinian father. Palestinian prisoner support NGO Addameer, which employed him as a field researcher, said he was first arrested and placed under administrative detention in 2001, aged 16. He was interned without trial for another five-month stretch in 2004, it said, then arrested again in 2005. Following that arrest, he was tried and convicted by an Israeli court on charges of plotting to assassinate Ovadia Yossef, a prominent Israeli rabbi and spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas political party. Hamouri was released in December 2011 as part of a swap of over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for Gilad Shalit, a soldier held captive in Gaza for more than five years. He has always maintained his innocence. Addameer says more than 5,500 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli jails, including approximately 450 in administrative detention.

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