Report: Security prisoners 'disappear' in Israeli jails
Israeli-Australian Ben Zygier, the suspected Mossad
operative who allegedly committed suicide at Ayalon Prison in 2010, was not the
only person to be jailed by Israel under a false name.
In many cases, the Israeli detainees are in greater
danger of being locked up under an assumed name and "disappearing."
However, the judicial system claims there is no such thing as "Prisoner
X" in Israel.
"When an Israeli is detained for security offenses,
a process begins, but no one knows how it will end," a source who is
familiar with the Zygier affair said Friday.
"He disappears into interrogation rooms, and no one
knows where he is. They do it using two tools: A gag order and an injunction
that prevents the detainee from meeting with an attorney.
"In this manner, the detainee is interrogated
without being aware of his rights and without meeting anyone. The entire system
is recruited to make him disappear.
"For instance, Izzat Nafso, the IDF intelligence
officer who served in the Lebanese Liaison Unit and was suspected of espionage
and aiding the enemy, was detained without the knowledge of his family. He was
interrogated for 14 days, and was tortured during the questioning," the
source claimed.
However, a senior judicial official painted an entirely
different picture. "There are no 'Prisoners X' in Israel," he
insisted, "It's an expression that comes from dictatorial countries where
people vanish without ever having seen an attorney or their family
members."
The Australian newspaper reported on Friday that Zygier's
family was given little information regarding the reasons behind his arrest and
did not know what the exact charges against him were.
According to the report, the family was convinced that
Israeli authorities were protecting his rights and did not cast doubt on the
investigation into his death.
The judicial official said, "Over the past 25 years
there wee very few cases in which it was decided that for security reasons
prisoners would be held under false names. In these cases, as in the Zygier
case, the family was immediately informed of the arrest, and the detainee was
given access to an attorney within days.
"In these cases the usual criminal proceedings were
held and the prisoner can file an appeal with the court, just like any other
prisoner."
Attorney Rachela Er'el, head of the Detainees and Prisoners
Rights Clinic in the Israel College for Law and Business, stressed that taking
away an individual's freedom while concealing information regarding his arrest
and identity is forbidden according to international law.
"Israel should have signed the treaty for the
protection of all persons from enforced disappearance. Hiding people in
difficult conditions while keeping them isolated and forbidding them from
maintaining contact with their families does not correlate with the concept of
human rights in a democratic country," she said.
A source who is familiar with subject explained that for
years prisoners were interrogated in "Facility 1391," where people
suspected of hostile activities against the State were held.
Since 2003, after an appeal on the matter had been filed,
detainees are held in interrogation wards inside detention facilities or in
separated maximum security wards inside prisons, such as the wards in Ayalon
Prison or Ohalei Keidar Prison.
According to the source, the problem pertains mainly to
Jewish detainees.
"Being a Jewish detainee can be the lowest status
there is. When Arab detainees are involved, the State usually cooperates or
allows visits by the Red Cross, as in the case of Palestinian engineer Dirar
Abu Sisi, who disappeared and was kidnapped in Ukraine about a year ago,"
he said.
"When an Israeli security detainee is involved, he
is detached from the world for as long as the authorities want. This is what
happened to former army intelligence officer Jean Elraz, who was arrested and
accused of murdering the security officer at Kibbutz Manara, stealing weapons
from the kibbutz's armory and selling them to terrorists."
Another source who is familiar with the incarceration
process said the Shin Bet security service is responsible for security
detainees, adding that the "Prison Service has almost no control"
over the cells in the isolated wards, "despite the fact that the Prison
Service is legally responsible for the prisoners.
"It's a situation whereby there is a prison inside a
prison. Sometimes even the commander of the facility does not know who the
prisoner is or what he was tried for. These are people without identities, and
their wardens do not know their real names," the source added.
"Their identification numbers are not registered in
the system. There is no documentation. The spy Marcus Klingberg, for example,
was called Greenberg. These methods still exist."
However, the legal official said the "Prisoner
X" affair was different in that Zyglier was held in solitary confinement
under a false name out of security concerns, as well as concerns for the
personal safety of the detainee and even his family.
The official said the gag order in cases such as these is
a necessity. "Here the public's right to know was violated for the sake of
State security. The gag order was completely justified," he said.
"Everything you hear about 'Prisoners X,' including
their suicides, comes from other inmates. Prisoners in the ward know when
another inmate kills himself and how he did it, because the story circulates;
but they do not know what it's about."
Attorney Er'el said the Zygier case shows that Israel
must introduce a system to supervise over the holding facilities in the
country. "We must work to eradicate such illegitimate practices in which
'nameless people' die in State holding facilities," she said.
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