Israeli courts give free hand to Shin Bet
▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/04/kidnapped-asraf-israeli-military-courts-torture.html
Journalist Nahum Barnea, of the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, reported in his April 10 column that during the searches in Hebron, the IDF detained a Palestinian who subsequently confessed to the kidnapping in his interrogation by the Shin Bet. The faked disappearance and forced confession again give rise to doubts about the use of so-called necessity interrogations by the Shin Bet, where the security agency is authorized to employ “special measures” in the interrogation of detainees.
It is unclear whether the Palestinian who claimed responsibility for the “kidnapping” of Asraf had indeed been subjected to “necessity interrogation.” However, lawyers specializing in civil rights cases, who represent Palestinians accused of security offenses in military courts, have told Al-Monitor that following the abduction and murder of the three Israeli youths last June, the Shin Bet was granted a sweeping license to conduct interrogations using various pressure methods, which often lead to false confessions obtained under duress.
“It is quite clear that there have been many such confessions,” attorney Gaby Lasky told Al-Monitor. Lasky, who represents the Meretz Party on the Tel Aviv City Council, is a human rights lawyer who has represented Palestinians in military courts for many years now. According to Lasky, “Ever since the ‘torture ruling’ given by the Supreme Court [June 1999], where the Supreme Court limited the use of physical means [in security-related interrogations], the court has allowed some torture in cases when the interrogation was defined as ‘a necessity interrogation.’ The number of ‘necessity interrogations’ has significantly increased since the abduction of the three boys, and there are lots of people who have been interrogated under such conditions and [consequently] admitted to all sorts of things.”