Translation: Marganit W.

A day in remand extension Court

What mostly typifies the remand extension court is chaos. Today it was worse than usual.

Judge: Lieut. Col. Azriel Levy

At a certain point today here were 6 attorneys in the hall, plus a prosecutor, 2 police investigators, 4 detainees and 2 family members. In addition, there were 5 Israeli women who came to observe and report – for the sake of the principle of public hearing.

Every few minutes the judge asked, “What about Case No.… and No…”  Some of the files were there, and the so-called hearing continued.

Judge Azriel Levy has a habit of asking every detainee, “How are you? How’s your health?” It is not clear if he expects a genuine answer, but the detainees routinely answer, “Everything’s OK.” Does he really expect a detainee to say, “Things are awful. I don’t know why I’m in jail. Nothing is OK.”

Today the Israeli political activists Tamar Berger, Anat Matar and Ora Slonim were present in court. Anat later published two excellent posts on Facebook. I recommend you read them.

Vivy and I remained after the break so we could report on the hearing of

Osama Alfahouri

(the hearing was delayed because the file could not be found).

Defense: Atty. Ihab Galid.

Osama is the son of Lama Khater. She was released last month after a year in custody. Lama Khater is one of the women of the Hebron Council that we have often reported on.

Osama is a student at Beir Zeit University. He was arrested, with two others, on 2.7.19, ten days before his mother’s release. He was taken to Shabak [GSS] interrogation at the Russian Compound and was barred from seeing an attorney for more than a month. A week ago he was taken to Ofer for remand extension, then returned to the Russian Compound.

Today the Investigator requested a ten-day remand extension to complete the investigation. The attorney objected, insisting that the file should be transferred to the prosecution.

The judge said he had examined the file and the “secret report” (there’s always a secret report that is not shown to the defense), and decided on an 8-day remand.

8 more days for Osama to be subjected to Shabak interrogation.

The next hearing is set for 25.8.19.