Israel Police will pay NIS 7,500 in compensation to a chareidi youth, who was falsely detained overnight as police demanded he provide a NIS 500 guarantee to appear at hearings against him.

Despite the young man’s explanation that his father had already paid the sum, he was arrested and compelled to spend an entire night in the police station, handcuffed and shackled all night long. Police only realized the severity of the error in the morning, when the young man was released without restrictions.

The complaint states that the young man returned to his home on the fourth night of Chanukah, to take part in a family vacation together. At about one o’clock in the morning, the plaintiff came hitchhiking to Yitzhar HaGadol Junction in Shomron, where he was detained by police officers. After checking his details on their computer, the police told him that he had to deposit NIS 500 in bond money to ensure that he would appear at proceedings against him. He was taken to the police station in Ariel, where he would remain until the NIS 500 bond is paid.

The young man explained he was detained in the Shar Binyamin station a month earlier, and at that time, his dad paid the NIS 500 bond, but police were not hearing it.

Upon his arrival at the police station, he was questioned briefly about an old suspicion that was pending against him. At the end he was told that he would stay at the station during the night and in the morning, he would be brought before a judge. He was handcuffed and shackled, placed in a room with a mattress and a blanket and remained that way the entire night.

Only in the morning, with the arrival of an officer to the station who had clarified the issue, it was made clear that the plaintiff actually deposited the sum a month earlier, as he claimed. He was released without any conditions, but his family had already gone on vacation without him.

According to Honenu attorney Menashe Yado, “This is not the first case in which there is no clear update in the terminal regarding bail payment. A few months ago, I closed a similar case on the night detention of a guy who was required to pay a deposit that had already been paid, until his release early in the morning after it became clear that the deposit had been paid”.

“If the police rely on the computer terminal to arrest people on suspicion that they did not pay, then the registration must be completely reliable.” Attorney Yado also claimed that “the police acted negligently … did not enter the payment properly into the terminal, did not conduct an exhaustive investigation before ordering his remand, did not train police officers to investigate information in real time, and there was no on-call officer able to address the matter, and failed to learn from previous cases, and more.

“The police have gone through, not to mention grossly trampling on the procedure before cuffing someone, and this procedure must be heightened by the Ariel police. As stated, the police will compensate the young man in the amount of NIS 7,500.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)