Salem Military Court (Samaria), Tuesday, 23.1.07Observer and reporter: Revital S.Translated by L. WilliamsFour Stories from Courtroom 3 and EnvironsJudge: Major Carmel Wahabi1.Assad Ibrahim Hatib was stopped while driving a stolen Israeli vehicle, at a gas station in his village, Kafin (in the West Bank). He was compelled to pay a 500 NIS guarantee that he would appear in court in Salem on Wednesday, 27.12.06, and his permit to enter Israel was taken. Before setting out on Wednesday, he checked and discovered that his name was not on the list of hearings for that day. The responsible prosecutor, Raad Shanan, contended that as far as Salem Court was concerned, Hatib’s case was closed, and had already been sent out, on 20/1/07, for confirmation. And so Hatib was supposed to come to Ofer to receive the documents and his guarantee immediately upon the acceptance of results of his enquiry in Judea and Samaria HQ, only they forgot to inform him. And so he stood in a line of 200 people at a checkpoint on his way there, in the freezing cold of this winter. Judea and Samaria HQ did not confirm the decision of the Salem Court, and summoned Hatib to a trial. He arrived together with Advocate Subhi Mahamid, from Um el-Fahm, and his story had a relatively happy ending: A 400 NIS fine, and his entry permit to Israel was returned. Advocate Mahamid said that Hatib’s Israeli employer was delighted to hear that he was returning to work.2. While I was waiting to see what would happen with Hatib, two hearings were taking place in the same courtroom. One of them was of six criminal detainees, who had come for extension of remand by eight days, as agreed between the prosecution and defense. Adi Gonen was the lawyer for all six. The judge accepted the agreement immediately, and the session was over in 20 minutes. Two of the six were brothers, and two others were father and son. In two cases of release, the freed detainee was asked to deposit a 10,000 NIS guarantee, to be paid within eight days or he would be brought before the court again.From a hurried conversation with the attorney during lunch break I learned that he had filed a petition to the High Court regarding a company named “Etgar,” which roams the territories, including Area A, collecting and towing cars and people to Israel. If I understood correctly, a panel of three judges, among them Levin and Cheshin, ruled that, in a place where there is no authority, it cannot be appropriated. In other words, they ruled that they are not deciding anything on this issue, as in many others of a similar nature. I note these facts only because they link up with the question of what was the person who arrested Assad Hatib doing in a gas station in Kafin.In the previous session, 11 cases of security detainees had been debated in half an hour. Here too, the judge confirmed the remand extensions agreed between prosecution and defense (9-15 days). All the cases sounded “serious”: Membership, activity and belonging to the military arm of the Tanzim, laying of explosive charges, trading in weapons, assistance to wanted persons, etc. One of the detainees is blind. The defense attorney joked sarcastically with the Shabak representative: “He probably wrote grafitti.” Another detainee said in good Hebrew: “I’m a businessman. I have two restaurants and a shop. Where did this charge of trading in weapons come from? Show me proof and I’ll sign whatever you want.”3. And the last story: The first hearing of the day was the case of the deputy head of Jis Council, Muhammad Hassan Assam Shbeita, represented by a family member, Advocate Fathi Shbeita from Tira (Israel). On 10.12.2005 he was arrested and remanded “until the end of proceedings.” On 15.2.2006 he was tried at Salem and found innocent of the charge of membership and activity in a hostile organization. He was elected to the council on the Party for Reform and Change, and his lawyer argued that he should not suffer retroactively because of the concern regarding this party that became established in the military justice system after the general election in the Authority, which took place only a year later. The lawyer succeeded in convincing the court and Shabeita was acquitted. Despite that, the next day he was taken to Qetziot where he was held in administrative detention until the prosecution could appeal the acquittal. That was his situation until 3.10.2006.Today, 23.1.2007, the prosecution voiced its arguments for punishment before the same judge who had acquitted Shabeita, asking that a prison sentence of 30 months be imposed. The reasoning was drawn from citations taken from earlier rulings in Judea and Samaria: “It is incumbent on the court to infuse meaning into the war it declared on the terror organizations…” (And so on and so forth; anyone who is interested is welcome to read the full court record).The judge reminded the prosecutor that, in plea bargains that he had encountered in similar cases only last week, no sentences of more than 10-12 months were pronounced. The attorney argued that Shabeita had conceded the facts in advance, only he had argued that no guilt was implied in them *, that his record was as white as snow, that he was not a reckless youth but a 33-year-old family man, and that his participation in the elections (which were welcomed in the world and in Israel) was his civil obligation. The accused argued that having a beard and being religious does not turn him into a member of Hamas or a security risk. How “senior” can the deputy council head in a village of 2000 inhabitants be? He went on to note that in the course of his 14 months’ detainment his mother and uncle had died, and he has not once seen his five children.The judge determined that sentence will be pronounced no later than 1.2.2007, and by then it is incumbent on the prosecution to provide the court with all the classified material, the documents relating to the dates of the detention and the reason for each remand. The judge emphasized that he would not agree to postpone the verdict on the grounds that the prosecution has not gathered all the requested material.This morning, there was not a single family member in Courtroom 3.* Compare with the report regarding the Mayor of Qalqiliya from 9.11.2006: Advocate Agbaria pleads in the name of his client, on the charge that he was elected to the “wrong party” according to the IDF classification, “the Party for Reform and Change.”