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PHRMG
fieldworker, Abed Al-Ahmar, has been held in Israeli
administrative detention for over eight months without
charges. On Wednesday, January 30, a review of the renewal order will
take place by military judge Amit Freeze in Megiddo prison.
Judge Freeze is a former military prosecutor who represented
the Shabak (Israel’s secret police) in the past in similar
cases.
Abed's attorneys are bringing three character witnesses to
testify on Abed's behalf. Obtaining the right to present
witnesses was not automatic. When Abed's attorneys refused
to disclose the identity of the witnesses, the prosecution
objected to bringing the witnesses, and Judge Freeze upheld
the objection. After oral argument, Judge Freeze ordered
Abed's attorneys to write a memorandum of law, explaining
why Abed should have the right to bring witnesses to testify
on his behalf and not to disclose their identities to the
prosecution. Abed's attorneys then wrote a short brief
explaining to Judge Freeze, that a fundamental right of any
defendant on trial is to present witnesses on his own behalf
and not to disclose his case before it is presented. In
Abed's case, where there isn't any trial, where the
government's witnesses and evidence against him are totally
secret, at the very least Abed has the right to provide his
own witnesses and not to disclose the identity of his
witnesses before the hearing. These tenets of courtroom
procedure were too basic for the judge to refute, and Judge
Freeze ruled that Abed could bring up to three witnesses.
Three
weeks ago, Abed fell in prison and was taken to the
emergency room in Afula hospital where he underwent minor
surgery on his head. The
entire time he was in the emergency room and in the
operating room, Abed hands and feet were shackled in metal
cuffs in violation of Israeli and international medical
ethics. The shackles
were removed for a brief time after a nurse complained that
they interfered with her ability to give Abed an injection.
After the injection was administered, Abed was handcuffed
again. |
