Palestinian boy freed from IDF jail without paying bail

[ProgressiveMuslim]

By Amira Hass, Haaretz Correspondent
Tags: Israel news, Hebron


An Israel Defense Forces court on Sunday agreed to release from custody a 13-year-old Palestinian boy held for nine days on suspicion of throwing stones at soldiers.

The boy has been held since his first remand hearing, on March 2, when his father was unable to pay the NIS 2,000 the court required for him to be released on bail. He was released on Sunday without paying bail.

An Israel Defense Forces soldier detained the boy, identified by his initials A.M., and his 11-year-old brother in Hebron's Old City, on the afternoon of February 27. The boys' father tracked down his younger son and was able to bring him home around 10 P.M. (military law prohibits the detention of minors under the age of 12).
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The older brother had been transferred earlier that day to the police station in the nearby Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba, but his father was prevented from seeing him. Later on he was moved again, this time to Ofer Prison, southwest of Ramallah.

The boys' mother told the human rights organization B'Tselem that the younger child was "tired and scared, and his pants were wet because he had urinated in them while being held there for several hours."

Three days later, on March 2, military prosecutor Eran Levy asked Judge Eti Adar to extend the boy's remand in order to file an indictment.

The court records indicate that A.M. admitted to throwing stones. Unlike civil law, Israeli military law allows authorities to interrogate Palestinian minors at unreasonable hours, such as at night, and without a parent present.

Lea Tsemel, the attorney representing the other inmates at Ofer that day, told Haaretz she was stunned to see "a scrawny redheaded child in the suspects' cage." Tsemel gave the boy a balloon (that she happened to buy for her grandchild) in order to remind those present in court of his age....

read on...
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1154675.html

[kirby]

1. "Unlike civil law, Israeli military law"

Reminds me of the path the US has taken with military tribunals/commissions and indefinite detention.