- beaten on his entire body, including his head;
- intimidated and subjected to verbal abuse;
- threatened with rape and killing;
- deprived from sleep through physically and mentally exhausting interrogation sessions reaching at times 12 hours;
- and exposed to collaborators’ violence.
The Israeli interrogation police, however, consistently refused to take into consideration the boy’s account. On the twentieth day following Ahmed’s arrest, the interrogators tied Ahmed to a mattress with both his legs and arms chained to his cell’s wall. He was held in this position for nine consecutive days. On the ninth day of the stress position, Ahmed eventually signed a statement in which he confessed to the accusations.
However, in an affidavit given to Addameer attorney Samer Sam’an, Ahmed insists that he only confessed because the pain was unbearable. He still denies the charges against him. At no point during his interrogation was Ahmed accompanied by his parents or his legal counsel.
Ahmed was in his final grade in high school and was studying for the Tawjihi, or final matriculation exam, prior to his arrest. Ahmed is currently being tried on charges of firing a weapon.
Arrest and Interrogation
At 12:30 a.m. on 23 April 2010, the Israeli military raided Azzoun village near Qalqilya, where they conducted a number of unlawful home searches and eventually entered into Ahmed Isleem’s family home. The soldiers did not present a search or an arrest warrant. Instead, they ordered Ahmed to “shut up” when he tried to challenge their authority. The entire family was forced into one room while the soldiers proceeded to carry out a thorough search, allegedly for a weapon, destroying the family’s property, including a television set, and items of religious and political value. They ordered Ahmed to get dressed, and then shackled and blindfolded him and threw him into a military jeep and drove off. In the jeep, the soldiers slapped Ahmed, hit him in the head and continuously humiliated the boy by ordering him to sit up and down, without any reason or justification.
The military jeep eventually arrived at the police station sometime between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m. The soldiers ordered Ahmed, still blindfolded and cuffed with his hands behind his back, to sit on the cold ground. He was kept in this position until 12:00 p.m. when the soldiers finally took him to see a doctor for a basic medical examination before transferring him to Huwwara Detention Center, near the West Bank city of Nablus. In an affidavit given to Addameer attorneys on 17 June 2010, Ahmed reports: “We arrived at about 1:00 p.m. Once there, they [the soldiers] forced me to stand in the street near the gate for four hours in the sun. Whenever I tried to sit on the ground, one of them would stop me with force. More than once I asked for water, but they refused
Ahmed was then transferred once again, this time to Jalameh detention and interrogation center. In Jalameh, Ahmed was held in cell # 34 which he describes as windowless, measuring only 1.5 by 2 square meters and containing nothing but a mattress and a Turkish toilet
The first interrogation session began at 8:00 p.m. that same evening and lasted close to nine consecutive hours, ending at 5:00 a.m. the next morning. During this entire time Ahmed’s hands were shackled to the chair while his legs were tied together. Ahmed reports that he was questioned by at least five interrogators on rotating shifts who asked him general questions as opposed to questions related to specific events. They also continuously pressured him to confess.
Ahmed was given only four hours of rest until he was brought before the interrogators for a second time, at 9:00 a.m. on 24 April. The second interrogation session lasted a total of six hours. When Ahmed continued to deny the interrogators allegations, questions were followed by threats. Ahmed reports that at one point the Israeli Security Agency Area Officer, Captain Shukri, who was present during Ahmed’s arrest, also joined the interrogation and threatened the boy with physical torture, rape and even killing. “This Captain Shukri told me to confess before he breaks me like he broke our house. He also said that he would practice indecent acts with me, that he will “f*** me in the ass”, and that he will kill me even if it takes him until the last day of his life to do so
Shackling during continuous day and nighttime interrogation sessions
The third interrogation session lasted a total of twelve consecutive hours, from 4:00 p.m. on 24 April until 4:00 a.m. on 25 April. At that point, the interrogation police seemed to have abandoned their tactics of intimidation and threats, and instead had adopted a strategy of physical and mental exhaustion by depriving Ahmed of sleep, making him sit in the interrogation room in the same position for several hours at a time with his hands tied behind his back, and asking only general questions about his willingness to confess. In a report published in 2009, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) argued that “security detainees” in Israel are systematically shackled for “invalid and irrelevant reasons, which include causing pain and suffering, punishment, intimidation, and illegally eliciting information and confessions”.
Ahmed was given eight hours of rest and the marathon started once again. The fourth interrogation session lasted six hours, from 12:00 p.m. until 6:00 p.m. on 25 April 2010, and was followed by yet another session starting at 6:30 p.m. that same evening and ending at 5:00 a.m. on 26 April. When Ahmed, who was neither accompanied by a parent or by his attorney, attempted to question the legality of exhausting night time interrogation sessions, “he [the interrogator] laughed and said that he gets paid 1234.30 NIS per hour, so he is actually benefiting from the situation
Accusations
On the fifth day, the interrogation police questioned Ahmed again for about 13 consecutive hours and informed him that he was being charged with firing a weapon. The interrogators also informed Ahmed that they were in possession of satellite photos of the event and that they had arrested Ahmed’s friends Sabra Isleem and Ahmed Abu Haniyeh, who they claimed had apparently confessed to firing at Israeli settlers. When Ahmed continued to deny the allegations, one of the interrogators, a very tall man with brown hair, as described by the boy, lost his temper after about ten hours of interrogation and began insulting and directing threats at Ahmed. He then started punching Ahmed in the face and hitting him on the head, including the use of, “three or four times”, a “thick iron sheet”. Ahmed recalls, “He [the interrogator] said that he was crazy, and he started throwing blows at my face and my head. He held a kind of thick iron sheet and he hit me it with three or four times on my head from behind. I felt dizzy and saw stars above me. My vision became blurry, but I did not lose consciousness. Around 5a.m., they took me back to the cell
Once in the cell, Ahmad realized that his head was bleeding following the injury that he sustained at the hands of the interrogator. In an affidavit given to Addameer attorneys, Ahmed reports that he subsequently fainted. He also reports having fainted more than once that day, but does not recall having received any medical treatment. Instead, he was continuously taken back to the interrogators’ room for more questioning.
After an entire week, throughout which Ahmed continued to deny the allegations despite torture and ill-treatment, the interrogators started questioning him every two days, at times during the afternoon, but occasionally also during the night.
Ahmed was kept in isolation for twenty days after which he was transferred to a different cell holding seven other detainees that he suspects were Israeli collaborators. Torture and ill-treatment in such cells is widespread and known to occur in some sections of Israeli prisons and detention centers, where detainees are often beaten, punched, threatened and exposed to psychological pressure if they refuse to talk to other prisoners who are detained in the same cells and who are typically collaborating with Israeli military authorities. Indeed, immediately after Ahmed’s transfer, the other detainees started questioning the boy about the kind of military activities he might have committed. When Ahmed answered that he was not guilty of anything and that he was just hunting for birds, all seven detainees attacked him. They reportedly took a towel and wrapped it around the boy’s neck. When an Israeli guard intervened, the other detainees claimed that Ahmed wanted to strangle himself. According to Ahmed’s account, the guard saw everything that happened, but instead of helping him when he complained, he answered, “No harm. Good, good. This is what we want, suggesting that the attack was coordinated by the interrogators and detention center authorities. Immediately after, the guard took Ahmed, exhausted and petrified, to Israeli police officers who had prepared a statement in Hebrew and asked the boy to sign it, which he did.
Torture continued for 9 days after the forced confession. After Ahmed signed the statement, he was taken to section #3 and placed in a cell big enough only to fit a mattress. The guards then chained both his legs and arms to metal bars, located on each wall. Ahmed recalls, “To these bars they chained me with metal chains, each hand to opposite direction and each leg to opposite direction. Ahmed reports that he was left in such position all night. The following day, the stress position continued in a bigger cell, which only accentuated the pain as Ahmed’s arms were chained slightly higher than previously, forcing him to exercise his muscle strength whenever he tried to relieve himself from the position. His blood circulation would also get cut off whenever he relaxed his muscles. Ahmed reports that interrogators repeatedly came to his cell and beat him on his stomach and hands. The pain was only interrupted during short meal breaks, one bathroom break every morning, and short 15-30 minute interrogation sessions where the interrogators kept insisting that the only way the torture would end is if Ahmed confessed to shooting at settlers. Ahmed remembers the entire experience as a period of disorientation, anxiety and vulnerability. He reports that he constantly screamed during the nine days asking guards to unchain him due to the unbearable pain. Whenever he would scream a lot, the guards would open the cell door and use a spray which would make him loose consciousness. Ahmed reports that he lost all sense of time perception during that time, and relied completely only on the information given to him by the guards and interrogators.
On the ninth day of the stress position, Ahmed eventually signed a second confession in which he stated, as instructed by the interrogation police officers, that he and his friends Sabra and Ahmed fired at Israeli settlers on two occasions; the first time from a distance of 10 meters and the second time from a distance of 50 meters. Ahmed still denies all charges against him and insists that he agreed to sign the confession only to end the pain: “After the ninth day of being shackled to the bed, I told the interrogator that I was ready to sign any confession he wanted just to end this horrible suffering
ADDAMEER STATEMENT
Addameer condemns Ahmed’s torture and ill-treatment at the hands of Israeli authorities as a violation of absolute prohibitions against these measures in international law, violations that are made all the more heinous due to Ahmed’s young age. The treatment of Ahmed by the Israeli interrogators, including the beating, threats, the use of solitary confinement over the course of 40 days and the use of a stress position for nine consecutive days, falls within the definition of torture and other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment as defined in the UN Convention Against Torture, to which Israel is a State Party.
Moreover, Addameer remains very concerned about the legitimacy of Ahmed’s ongoing trial before the Israeli military courts, including the use of the forced confession as primary evidence by the prosecution. It remains clear that these courts operate in blatant disregard for fundamental international fair trial standards and lack any sort of meaningful protection for child detainees. Since 1967, the Israeli military court system in the Occupied Palestinian Territory has operated with frightening impunity, rarely if ever, upholding fair trial standards. Addameer therefore calls for the charges against Ahmed to immediately be dropped, and for those responsible for his torture and ill-treatment to be investigated and prosecuted.
On 25 August 2010, Addameer filed a complaint to the Israeli Ministry of Justice and the Attorney General calling for a thorough and impartial criminal investigation into the conduct of the interrogators who tortured and abused Ahmed Isleem. At the same time, Addameer contends that it is very unlikely that such an investigation will be initiated without the needed political and diplomatic pressure given that the Israeli authorities have consistently failed to investigate and indict its soldiers and Israeli Security Agency officers involved in criminal offenses against Palestinian civilians in the OPT.
Criminal investigation of members of the security forces who commit offenses against Palestinians and their property in the West Bank, ranging from manslaughter to abuse to looting, is under the responsibility of the Military Advocate General (MAG), the Military Police Criminal Investigation Department (MPCID) and the Department for the Investigation of Police Officers in the Ministry of Justice These law enforcement agencies have been under severe criticism for their investigation of suspects and prosecution of members of the security forces accused of committing such offenses. According to Yesh Din, during the years of the second intifada, 90 percent of MPCID investigations ended with the files being closed without indictments being filed. Addameer therefore urges foreign government officials, including members of foreign representative offices to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and foreign Consulates in East Jerusalem, as well as the Office of EU Representative in Israel and the OPT, human rights organizations and United Nations bodies to:
- Raise Ahmed Isleem’s case with the Israeli authorities;
- Demand that the Military Police Criminal Investigation Department conducts an impartial and independent investigation into the soldiers actions;
- Raise Ahmed Isleem’s case to the attention of the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, as per some human rights monitoring guidelines, including the EU Guidelines on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment;
- Attend Ahmed Isleem’s court hearings at the Israeli Military Court.
- Send Ahmed letters of support to his postal address in prison;
- Write to the Israeli government, military and legal authorities and demand that Ahmed be released immediately, that the charges against him be dropped and that an independent and impartial investigation of the soldiers who subjected Ahmed to torture and ill-treatment be conducted; or,
- Write to your own elected representatives urging them to pressure Israel to release Ahmed and to call for an independent and impartial investigation of the events surrounding his arrest be immediately conducted.
Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
Tel: +972 (0)2 296 0446 / 297 0136
Fax: +972 (0)2 296 0447
Email: info@addameer.ps
Website: www.addameer.info
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