On Saturday night, November 12, 2011, detectives from the National Unit of Serious and International Crime Investigations arrested a Hebron resident, a minor, on suspicion of involvement with the Beit Fajir mosque arson over one year ago.
On Sunday investigators from the National Unit of Serious and International Crime Investigations requested a lengthy seven day extension on his remand, even though he hadn’t been interrogated yet. The Petah Tikvah Magistrate Court extended his remand by one day only, and justified the decision by the need to interrogate the youth.
On Monday, November 14th, the youth was brought again to court and the police requested that he be released to an extended house arrest outside of Yehuda and Shomron.
Honenu attorney Yossi Lin, who represented the youth, demanded that no restrictions whatsoever be placed on the youth being as there is nothing linking him to the incident. Judge Devorah Attar accepted most of Lin’s pleas and ruled that the youth will pay a 2,500 NIS bond and be unconditionally released.
Thus ends the investigation of the Beit Fajir mosque arson, being as the youth was the last arrestee in the case. All of the arrestees, who were arrested by the special investigative staff for “price tag” cases” set up by the police commissioner, were unconditionally released after the court ruled that there was no evidence linking them to the arson.
Honenu attorney Yossi Lin, who represented the youth, said in response to the conduct of the police that, “From the beginning it was clear that the arrest was baseless. All of the other suspects in the case had been released, and it was clear that the investigation had reached a dead end.
“The police acted maliciously in bringing the arrestee to court and requesting a seven day remand, even before he was interrogated, when afterwards they interrogated the suspect for only a quarter of a hour. The police acted thus in order to obligate the court to extend the remand for the purpose of investigation. After one day in remand the suspect was in fact released when there was no cause for extending his remand.”
Lin adds that, “In my opinion, the police did not act in good faith, and did so in order to please the upper echelons by showing them that there are making arrests in cases such as this, when the bottom line is that they have no evidence and are making false arrests. Attention must be given to the fact that no-one is going to compensate the suspect for this false arrest.”
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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One Response
This youth got lucky that he was let out! I know from experience the well known fact that the police arrest people without evidence all the time. Usually people aren’t so lucky and are kept in jail for lengthy periods until being released for lack of evidence.