During a recent appeal, the Supreme Court acknowledged that Ben Uliel’s confession was obtained under torture but ruled that it was admissible evidence in his case nonetheless.

By World Israel News Staff

A leading Religious Zionist rabbi called for the reexamination of a Jewish terror suspect’s conviction – which security agencies admit was obtained under torture – and for the authorities to ease the conditions of his incarceration.

In 2020, Amiram Ben Uliel was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences plus an additional 20 years for the 2015 firebombing of a Palestinian family home in Duma that killed three people.

However, serious questions have been raised regarding Ben Uliel’s guilt in the case, notably that he was tortured for days by the Shin Bet before confessing. Ben Uliel has consistently maintained his innocence since his initial confession, which he swiftly recanted.

Rabbi Tzvi Kostiner, who heads the pre-army Midbara K’Eden Yeshiva in Mitzpe Ramon, affiliated with the Religious Zionism movement, said he believes Ben Uliel is innocent.

Ben Uliel “didn’t do anything,” Kostiner said during a clip filmed at a rally supporting the convict. He added that “even if” Ben Uliel was guilty, the harsh conditions of his incarceration are disproportionate considering his crime.

Since his arrest, Ben Uliel has been kept in the strictest possible detention conditions. In solitary confinement, he has asked to participate in Jewish communal life with other prisoners or to be moved to a wing for religiously observant prisoners. Both of those requests have been denied.

“I call on everybody, let’s end this evil and do the biggest justice and release him,” the rabbi stated.

During a recent appeal, the Supreme Court acknowledged that Ben Uliel’s confession was obtained under torture but ruled that it was admissible evidence in his case.

That decision sparked criticism from MK and legal scholar Simcha Rothman, who said that the decision to legitimize a confession obtained under torture sets a dangerous precedent for Israel’s criminal justice system.

Labor party head Merav Michaeli slammed Kostiner for his statements. “This is what supporters of Jewish terror look like,” she wrote on Twitter, adding that Kostiner is “an inciter” and “full of poison.”

The post ‘Great injustice’: Rabbi calls to reexamine conviction of ‘Jewish terrorist’ appeared first on World Israel News.

Amiram Ben Uliel, who was convicted of the deadly 2015 Duma arson attack, says he was severely tortured, physically and psychologically, by the Shin Bet security agency, seeks damages.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

A Jewish-Israeli man who was convicted of the deadly 2015 firebombing of a Palestinian family’s home, based on a confession he made after he was tortured by the Shin Bet security agency, is suing the body for 5 million shekels ($1.4 million), his attorney announced on Tuesday morning.

Amiram Ben Uliel was sentenced to three life terms for the arson attack, which killed an 18-month-old baby and his parents in the PA-administered town of Duma. Ben Uliel was convicted primarily on the basis of a confession he gave to the Shin Bet, which he later recanted.

Ben Uliel’s attorney Menashe Yado noted that the details of the physical torture Ben Uliel allegedly endured are still under a gag order, so specifics about what happened cannot be made public.

However, Yado said, his client was subject to “severe violence.”

According to statements from Yado and portions of the lawsuit published by Hebrew-language media outlets, he suffered extended psychological and physical torture. He was shackled for hours on end and forced to spend a winter night in an unheated cell without a blanket or coat, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit also described torture which was specifically designed to distress Ben Uliel by taking advantage of his religiosity.

He was allegedly sexually harassed by a female Shin Bet agent, who touched his body against his will, knowing that as an observant Jew, Ben Uliel refrains from any physical contact with women who are not his wife or immediate family members.

He was also said to have been forced to listen to hours of women singing – which Orthodox Jews consider forbidden.

Ben Uliel has said he was severely tortured for two days before giving a statement saying he was involved in the crime – a claim which Israel’s Supreme Court later acknowledged was true, but it ruled that the torture did not constitute sufficient grounds to overturn his conviction.

The Court also determined that his coerced confession was still admissible in court.

Ben Uliel’s conviction has raised concerns among prominent legal scholars, including Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman, an attorney and expert in Israeli law.

“I don’t know whether Amiram Ben Uliel perpetrated the Duma murder or not,” Rothman wrote on Twitter shortly after the Supreme Court rejected his appeal in September 2022.

However, he wrote, “I know that a system of justice, which approves confessions given after torture, is not fit to be called a just system.”

The post ‘Severe violence, torture’ — Israeli prisoner sues Shin Bet for 5 million shekels appeared first on World Israel News.

MK Simcha Rothman tweets that he is baffled as to why the outlet “decided to attack me with such malicious falsehoods.”

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

MK Simcha Rothman of the Religious Zionism party sent a warning letter to the Jerusalem Post on Sunday, saying that an editorial by the newspaper could constitute “incitement” and “absolute lies.”

Earlier on Sunday, the prominent English-language Israeli newspaper ran an editorial headlined “Simcha Rothman’s support for Jewish terrorist crosses a dangerous line,” which claimed that the lawmaker was attempting to undermine the Israeli justice system and that he was defending a murderer simply due to the fact he is Jewish.

Rothman, an attorney and author of a book about judicial overreach in Israel, had questioned the validity of a recent Supreme Court decision denying an appeal from Amiram Ben Uliel, who was convicted of terror.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court acknowledged that Ben Uliel had been extensively tortured by Israeli security agencies before confessing and that some of the admissions from the defendant, which had been obtained via torture, should be disregarded.

However, the court ruled that other evidence of Ben Uliel’s guilt was strong enough that his conviction was valid and that his main confession was admissible.

“I don’t know whether Amiram Ben Uliel perpetrated the Duma murder or not,” Rothman wrote on Twitter shortly after the ruling. “I know that a system of justice, which approves confessions given after torture, is not fit to be called a just system.”

The Post editorial took issue with Rothman’s position, insinuating that the lawmaker was defending Ben Uliel just because he was Jewish and whitewashing any alleged terror activity.

“Sometimes, dangers to human rights and democracy become more serious from seeming moderates who try to sneak extremist views into the mainstream,” the editorial began.

“According to Rothman, a Jew accused of violence is innocent even after conviction and after all appeals are exhausted, but for Palestinians it is different,” the editorial charged.

Rothman’s statement questioning the use of torture in criminal investigations against Israeli citizens is “a back door to legitimizing extremist Jewish violence against innocent Palestinians,” the Post concluded.

“It is unclear to me as to why the Jerusalem Post has decided to attack me with such malicious falsehoods,” Rothman wrote on Twitter Sunday evening.

“It’s not my style to file libel suits or to threaten to do so, especially against media outlets, but these lies are so blatant and amount to…incitement, with no basis for the statements made whatsoever – leaving me with no other option,” he added.

A letter to the Post from Rothman’s attorney, Uri Nizri, blasted the outlet’s “absolute lies.”

“The article relates to a post and tweet published by MK Rothman on social media in which he protests the way in which the confession of Amiram Ben Uliel was accepted as valid by the Supreme Court, even though it was obtained via torture,” read the letter.

“MK Rothman also wrote explicitly that he does not know whether Amiram Ben Uliel committed this crime or not, as the validity of the interrogation was placed in question due to the fact that Ben Uliel was tortured… a reading of the tweet and statements of MK Rothman cannot identify any support for terrorism, for any terrorist, or even any distinction between a confession extracted by means of torture from an Arab or a Jew.

“The claims made in the article are baseless, and therefore the author, who remains anonymous, resorted to making deliberate accusations…regarding matters that are entirely untrue and extremely grave and also cross the line of criminal behavior and can be interpreted as incitement, as they give the impression that my client supports terrorism, Heaven forbid.”

The post Right-wing MK outraged by ‘libelous’ attack from major Israeli paper, threatens to sue appeared first on World Israel News.

Many hard facts in the famous Duma case appear to contradict the decision of Israel’s Supreme Court to sentence a young father to life in prison. Will Israelis protest?

By Sheri Oz

Are Israelis willing to deal with the implications of a contradiction-laden criminal case and demand that the justice system conduct a serious self-interrogation, essentially putting itself on trial?

Because of the many contradictions, listed below, it is difficult for much of the public to trust the verdict in the Amiram Ben-Uliel trial; he was found guilty of setting fire to a house in the Palestinian Arab town of Duma in 2015, causing the deaths of three members of one family and leaving a four-year-old boy orphaned and badly burned.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court rejected the latest appeal submitted by attorney Avigdor Feldman on behalf of Ben-Uliel, bringing him back into the news.

The Israeli public consistently stands against violence and terror, and if the terrorist is a Jew, that position does not change. If that is not clear to all, then just consider the overwhelmingly agonized reactions when the brutal murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir by Jews came to light. The reaction to the disclosure of the Duma arson was similarly immediate: shock and horror.

Given the verdict, it makes sense that news reports refer to Ben-Uliel as a murderer and terrorist. However, when the story first broke, articles pointed out the possibility that, in spite of how it looked at first, because of the Hebrew graffiti on the wall, it was possibly not a Jewish crime. Therefore, contradictions that have not been sufficiently addressed render much of the public wary of fully trusting the outcome of the case.

Before listing the contradictions, none of which are being raised in the media at present, it is important to discuss the use of torture – enhanced interrogation – to produce the confessions upon which the conviction was based.

Feldman, a human rights lawyer who generally represents anti-Israel activists, took on this case of an ultra-Orthodox “hilltop youth” — nationlists who establish illegal outposts in Judea and Samaria — because of his concern with the use of torture in obtaining confessions. He was not trying to prove Ben-Uliel innocent but, rather, attempting to vacate the confessions. He lost.

Ben-Uliel maintained his silence for 17 days before the torture began. He had not seen a lawyer. On the 21st day, his captors would have been required to let him see legal counsel and they began the use of “enhanced interrogation” in these last few days. Finally, they got their confession.

The confessions obtained immediately after the torture were tossed out of court, but the law accepts confessions obtained over 36 hours after the torture ceases, with the rationale that the torture no longer affects the accused and the confession is then voluntary and not forced.

I, in fact, was once questioned under caution because of a lie someone had told about me, and, while I knew that I had done nothing wrong, I shook throughout the interrogation and was not sure the police officer would believe me until I walked out of the station.

It is safe to say that torture is traumatic, especially for a 21-year-old man who had never been arrested before.  To have spent 17 days under arrest, cut off from the rest of the world, undergoing repeated interrogations with officers who were convinced of his guilt, was already traumatic. Add to that the torture, descriptions of which Feldman said he found difficult to read. The impact of that experience does not dissipate in 36 hours and perhaps not even in 36 weeks or 36 months, especially when these later confessions were given within the same environment and to the same people who had tortured him.

Why was a confession needed?

In Israel, enhanced interrogation is allowed only when an individual is deemed to be a “ticking bomb,” meaning that intelligence information has shown that this individual is part of a terrorist organization planning an imminent attack. But Ben-Uliel was deemed by the court not to be a member of a terrorist organization, and he certainly could not carry out an attack while in prison. This means that the only reason for the enhanced interrogation, in his case, was to force a man stubbornly sticking to his claims of innocence to say what they needed him to say.

Why did they need Ben-Uliel to confess? There was international pressure to find a culprit for this crime. Given the Hebrew graffiti, it was accepted that the perpetrator must be a Jew. Months later, with growing frustration at the lack of progress, Ben-Uliel and two minors were arrested. It has never been made clear what led to the arrest of these particular three people. But they had to be found guilty. It was important to show that Israel prosecutes Jewish murderers of Palestinian Arabs and not just Palestinian Arab terrorists.

In the end, one of the minors was found guilty of helping Ben-Uliel plan the attack and Uliel was found guilty of carrying it out. Shortly after their arrests, however, Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon both said there was insufficient evidence to prosecute.

But the fact that Ben-Uliel and his alleged accomplice were ultra-Orthodox hilltop youth — a group vilified by the elite leftist members of the Israeli population and leadership — may have made it appear the conviction would go unchallenged by the public. And this is true to some extent.

Were the court to have decided, in this latest appeal, that all confessions obtained through torture are inadmissible, the case would need to be retried. And given the contradictions listed below, a retrial would possibly exonerate Ben-Uliel.

Should that happen, the public would be exposed to a serious miscarriage of justice and the search for the real perpetrators of murder would have to be resumed in the now-cold case. It could result in suits being filed against those involved in the original interrogations and trial, not to mention an explosion of wrongful conviction cases added to the 21 out of 28 convictions retried since the establishment of the State of Israel that were found to be wrongful. Perhaps these are the reasons behind the latest rejection of the appeal.

On the other hand, if Ben-Uliel were to be found guilty in a more transparent re-trial, faith in the justice system would be restored and we could sleep well at night knowing that the man in jail really is guilty.

Will Israelis demand answers?

Look at the inconsistencies and contradictions reported in the media when the case broke and see what you think might be the truth. And remember – these are not necessarily facts but pieces of potential evidence that should be brought to a trial and substantiated or refuted under oath. Then we could say that justice has been done.

– There were several cases of arson in Duma before and after this particular one. It was common knowledge that arson was committed among the Palestinian Arab inter-clan conflicts rampant during that time.

– Initial eyewitness reports claimed there were either two or four arsonists and that they got away by car. Ben-Uliel was accused of working alone and being on foot.

– His wife said he was with her all night and his voice could be heard when a friend called at night – neither the wife nor the friend was called in to give statements. He could not have gone out after the phone call because from 5 a.m. he was looking after his daughter and would not have had time to commit the crime and get back home in time.

– The houses torched were deep in the town and not the more easily targeted buildings at the edge. How did he get into town, commit the crime, write two graffiti messages on walls — and get away without having been caught? And why did he not have anyone with him in case he was in danger? Analyst Martin Sherman of the Israel Institute of Strategic Students questions how a militarily untrained young man could have had the ability to carry out the attack on his own.

– An expert graphologist determined that the two graffiti messages, one of which was a specifically Chabad-type message rather than a nationalist one, were written by two different people and that Ben-Uliel was not one of them. Furthermore, Ben Uliel is not affiliated with the Chabad Movement. The writing style also suggested Arab calligraphy.

– The house of Ibrahim Dawabsha, a key witness for the defense, was set on fire, and it was believed to be in retaliation for his evidence that more than one person was involved in the crime.

Will people demand a search for the truth? Or will complacency leave questions unanswered and a young man condemned for a life in prison for what can, perhaps, be considered a trial of political expediency and one that had international import?

The post Conviction of Jew for murder of Palestinians could be wrongful – opinion appeared first on World Israel News.

Supreme Court rejects appeal filed by Israeli man convicted of murdering Arab family in 2015 firebomb attack, dismissing claim that his confession was invalidated by use of torture.

By World Israel News Staff

The Israeli Supreme Court handed down a ruling on Thursday upholding a lower court’s conviction of a Jewish man accused of murdering a Palestinian Arab family in Samaria seven years ago.

Twenty-eight-year-old Amiram Ben-Uliel was found guilty in May 2020 by the Lod District Court in central Israel of three counts of murder for the deaths of one-year-old Ali Dawabsheh and his parents, Sa’ed Muhammad Hassan Dawabsheh and Riham Hussein Hassan Dawabsheh.

Ben-Uliel was also found guilty of two counts of attempted murder and two counts of arson.

The conviction stemmed from an incident on the night of July 31, 2015, when a firebomb was hurled into the Dawabsheh home in the Palestinian Authority-controlled town of Duma, sparking a fire.

While a number of arson cases have been reported in Duma as part of long-running rivalries between families, Hebrew graffiti was found on the exterior of the Dawabsheh home, leading investigators to treat the incident as an act of Jewish terror.

In September of 2020, Ben-Uliel was given three life sentences, with an additional 20 years in prison.

Attorneys for Ben-Uliel appealed the Lod court’s conviction, petitioning the Supreme Court to overturn the guilty verdict based on the use of “special techniques” during interrogation – including methods some rights groups have claimed amount to torture.

The three Supreme Court justices who heard the appeal – Yitzhak Amit, Yosef Elron, and Shaul Shochat – expressed misgivings about investigators’ use of torture to extract the confession, but nevertheless ruled that Ben-Uliel’s second confession and reenactment of the attack given 36 hours after the first confession remains legally valid.

“There is no doubt” of Ben-Uliel’s guilt,” the judges wrote in their decision Thursday.

Justice Elron noted, however, that he remains “troubled to a certain extent about the future, given the message sent to the investigative bodies in view of this outcome.”

Four years ago, the Lod District Court ruled Ben-Uliel’s initial confession invalid, since it had been obtained via torture. The court also found confessions made by Ben-Uliel’s accomplice, who was under 18 at the time of the arson, were inadmissible.

While Ben-Uliel had remained silent for 17 days after his arrest in 2015, after interrogators used “enhanced techniques,” he confessed to investigators. Thirty-six hours later, he agreed to reenact the firebombing, again confessing to the attack.

Ben-Uliel’s defense team argued in its appeal to the Supreme Court that while no torture was used during the second confession and reenactment, given the prior measures used against him, the defendant feared further torture and his later confession must also be considered to have been made under duress.

The post Israel’s Supreme Court upholds Jewish man’s murder conviction in Duma case appeared first on World Israel News.

In addressing the sentencing hearing, the wife of the man convicted for the Duma firebombing writes that justice has not been served as her husband is innocent.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The wife of Amiram Ben Uliel wrote the court, which is hearing sentencing arguments Tuesday following her husband’s conviction last month in a triple homicide, that his trial had been a “show” put on by the security services and that her husband is innocent, N12 reported Tuesday.

Ben Uliel was convicted for killing three members of the Dawabshe family in a 2015 firebombing in the Arab village of Duma. His lawyers maintain that he confessed to the crime only because he had been brutalized by his interrogators. The court ultimately decided to throw out only part of his confession due to the torture.

“You made a huge mistake,” Orian Ben Uliel said to the judges in a letter obtained by the news site. “You fell in line with the production of the Shabak [Israel’s internal security services], which decided to get results from the Duma investigation no matter what.

“You sanctioned the public relations show produced in the interrogation rooms with torture, and then running to film [a confession] afterward, as if the pain had passed, as if the fear was removed; as if someone who underwent torture goes back to having free will hours afterward in those same rooms and with those same people.”

The torture her husband suffered reminded her of dark days in Jewish history.

“My husband has already been punished in the interrogations… the pain and mental scars left by the torture are a punishment far greater than any other penalty. There are few people in Israel who have been punished like this by the authorities, who were physically whipped and tortured horribly, like in the days of the Inquisition and Middle Ages,” she continued.

Orian said that the Dawabshe family should have gotten real justice for their loss.

“The Dawabshe family underwent a terrible event, they deserved a fair trial, a trial that would bring a true judgment. Instead, they get a show and a drummed-up case against an innocent man,” she wrote.

“My husband is innocent, he didn’t do anything, everyone knows this,” she concluded. “This case should never have come to trial. I expect you to correct this injustice and change your minds.”

Ben Uliel’s lawyers intend to appeal his conviction to the Supreme Court. They have not been alone in pointing out numerous contradictions in witnesses’ testimonies and the implausibility of one man being able to do all the things the prosecutors said he did, besides the proven unreliability of confessions obtained under torture.

The post Wife of man convicted in Duma arson murder blasts court: ‘It was a show trial’ appeared first on World Israel News.

Perhaps the most disturbing issue, raised by the cloud of doubt enveloping the Duma-related legal proceedings, is the tangible possibility that the real perpetrators of the gruesome murders may still be roaming around free.

 By Martin Sherman

On July 31, 2015, 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh was burned alive in an arson attack in the Palestinian village of Duma. Both his parents died from their injuries within weeks.

“Terror is terror. Whether it comes from Arabs or Jews,” said Shai Nitzan, former state attorney, on December 31, 2018.

On May 18, 2020, an Israeli court declared Amiram Ben Uliel guilty of three counts of murder.

“This is a black day for the State of Israel…a day on which an Israeli court set its hand to convicting a man whose innocence cries out to the heavens. said the defense team after the conviction of Ben-Uliel.

Perhaps the most disturbing issue, raised by the cloud of doubt enveloping the Duma-related legal proceedings, is the tangible possibility that the real perpetrators of the gruesome murders may still be roaming around free—secure in the knowledge that someone else will pay for the atrocity they committed

Imagine a country in which a Jewish citizen was convicted of brutal murder, despite the fact that his confession was extracted from him by “enhanced interrogation” (aka infliction of physical pain); that his confession contradicted all eyewitness evidence at the scene; that he was denied access to legal counsel for an extended period during his interrogation; that, before and after his alleged crime, numerous similar attacks have been repeatedly perpetrated; and that all reasonable doubt and alternative accounts of the event were totally disregarded in assigning his guilt.

Clearly, such a case of blatant anti-Jewish bias would be expected to elicit dismayed outrage and virulent protest from Israel as the Jewish nation-state, whose very raison d’etre is, largely, to shield Jews from precisely such Judeophobic prejudice and prevent such flagrant cases of anti-Jewish abuse from taking place.

Yet the bitter irony is that it is not really necessary to imagine such blatant Judeophobic disregard of due process. On May 18th, it actually took place! In Israel!

Full disclosure: My natural bias

On that fateful day, the Lod District Court convicted Amiram Ben Uliel, a religious Jew, of the murder of three members of the Dawabsheh family, when, according to the ruling, he set their home ablaze in July 2015

Now, as I have written in the past, I have a strong personal bias in favor of the Israeli security services and the intelligence community, in whose ranks I served for several years. I have the greatest esteem for the dedication, commitment and professional competence of those who serve in them. Perhaps more than many, I have a keen appreciation for the effort, risk and at times, sacrifice their work involves.

In stark contrast, I have little or no affinity for the “hilltop youth” (with whom the defendant was reportedly associated)—neither with regard to their theo-political ideology nor with the practical methods of operation by which they allegedly strive to implement it.

In large measure, my decidedly non-observant socio-cultural milieu is the antithesis of theirs, with its all-encompassing, faith-based fervor.

Yet, despite my natural proclivities, ever since the fatal torching of the Dawabshehs’ dwelling in the ill-fated village of Duma at the end of July 2015, I have felt a growing uneasiness at the handling of the affair—particularly regarding the official response—read “capitulation”—to the (understandable) outcry of public shock and fury that followed the tragedy.

Sadly, this took the form of what can only be described as a knee-jerk reaction, not only by almost immediately attributing blame for the act to Jewish “terrorists” (despite the absence of any evidence to substantiate the allegation), but by adopting extra-judicial measures to contend with it, similar to those employed against Arab terrorist organizations.

Grave misgivings

I articulated my misgiving in a series of almost 10 articles, over a period spanning three and half years. In them, I also underscored the absurdity of the attempt to draw any parallels between transgressions of the Jewish “hilltop youth” and the those of organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas, and hence to the totally unjustifiable denial of due process during their incarceration.

Since then—and particularly after the May 18th conviction—those misgivings have only grown more perturbing.

True, the Lod District Court did find that Ben Uliel did not belong to a terrorist organization—but, somewhat paradoxically, that only made the rationale behind the ruling even more difficult to fathom.

After all, it cast grave doubts on the justification for the use of “enhanced interrogation”, without which it is unlikely that any confession would have been extracted from Ben-Uliel. Indeed, to the best of my knowledge, no information has been released (read “even exists”) on the identity of the organization he was suspected of belonging to; where its headquarters were; what its sources of funding were; what menacing infrastructure it has/had for staging waves of terrorist activity; what its planned attacks were to be and when/where they were to be carried out?

The ‘ticking bomb’ claim

The latter issue is of crucial importance.

For, despite the vigorous legal debate on the justification of “enhanced interrogation”, the courts have only tended to condone the use of “physical pressure” on detainees if the situation is considered a “ticking bomb” one—i.e. when it is imperative to extract information to prevent an impending terror attack and to save lives that otherwise might well be lost.

Clearly then, if a detainee is not a member of a terrorist organization—but acting on his own, as the Court ruled Ben-Uliel was—he is highly unlikely to constitute a “ticking bomb”—as the very fact that he is in custody would imply that he is unable to perpetrate any planned act of terror. In other words, “enhanced interrogation” is not an admissible measure to be used in resolving acts of terror perpetrated in the past, but may be so when used to prevent an impending one, intended to be perpetrated in the future.

Thus, in an otherwise mealy-mouthed editorial, the Jerusalem Post writes: “There is no reason for the Shin Bet to act to extract a confession at any cost; there is every reason for the security agency to act to obtain the intelligence that can thwart planned violent attacks before [it] can take place…”

Of course, given the grave doubts as to whether he committed the Duma arson, one might well be excused for feeling a puzzled concern over what ex ante suspicions Ben-Uliel’s interrogators entertained regarding some future atrocity he was scheming to commit.

Intentionally false pretexts, or unintentionally false assumptions

Indeed, in a 2018 conference on the enhanced interrogation methods of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), even one far-left, pro-Palestinian activist singled out the Duma episode as one, where use was made of “a ‘ticking bomb [claim]as a reason to torture suspects even when, like in the Duma case, the interrogation is dedicated only to solving a past issue.”

Accordingly, there seems little doubt that permission for “enhanced interrogation” was obtained—if not under intentionally false pretexts—then under unintentionally false assumptions.

Indeed, in this case, the “ticking bomb” claim rings increasingly hollow in light of the fact that Ben-Uliel remained unapprehended for around six months, during which he never engaged in—and was never accused of engaging in—any other terror-affiliated activity—leaving concerned citizens to ponder over just what “bomb”—if at all— was “ticking” anywhere outside the interrogators’ unbending resolve to bring about a conviction.

There is, of course, considerable justification for the adoption of harsh interrogation methods when there is a genuine and well-founded suspicion that a detainee is withholding information that could prevent a planned terror attack and may save lives. However, its abuse, in instances where there is little indication that this is so, will be seized on by the measure’s opponents and can only work to jeopardize its future use in cases where such belief is far more substantial and substantiated.

Significantly, in a recent media interview, the former deputy head of the Shin Bet, Yitzhak Ilan, recalled an incident in which a confession to and even a reenactment of terror attack proved to be false,  much to chagrin of many in the law enforcement establishment.

Ilan warned: “When you get a false confession from a suspect and imprison him, you cause   damage–[as] the actual terrorist in the field keeps carrying out attacks and the security forces’ alertness drops because you supposedly caught the [culprit]”.

Coerced confession

On the day of the conviction, (May 18), the unequivocally left-wing daily, Haaretz, reported: “Ben-Uliel confessed to the crime three times. Two of Ben-Uliel’s confessions were ruled inadmissible, the first because it was extracted by physical force and the second because it had been given soon after physical force was used. A third confession was eventually accepted.”

Somewhat bafflingly, the Court dismissed Ben-Uliel’s request that his third confession should also be considered inadmissible—on the eminently plausible grounds that it was only made because he feared being subjected to “enhanced interrogation” again, if he refused to confess to his guilt.

Indeed, some of the statements made by the Court, as reported by the media, are—at least to the layman—both puzzlingly and perturbing.

Thus, the Times of Israel quoted the judges as stating: “We cannot rule out the possibility that this was an act of revenge motivated by racist perceptions held by the defendant, even if he wasn’t a member of an organized terrorist infrastructure.”

Similarly, Haaretz noted that: “The judges wrote that they could not rule out that the attack was motivated by a desire for revenge or racism without Ben-Uliel actually being a member of an organized group.”

I wonder if it is only me who finds this formulation appalling! Indeed, it appears to be a total inversion of due process, wherein the judges are imparting dastardly motives to the accused—unless he is able to prove otherwise.

Bridging gaps between evidence and confession

After all, in our justice system it is not for the accused to definitively rule out any conceivable incriminating “possibility,” but for the prosecution to definitively rule it in—at least beyond reasonable doubt. If the prosecution cannot do so—and judging by the Court’s somewhat circuitous formulation, it has failed to do so—then it must be ruled out.

Indeed, this is the very essence of the presumption of innocence and the corner stone of the Western justice system.

Unsurprisingly, one member of the defense team excoriated this conduct by the Court, declaring: “After the court accepted the confession and recreation [of the crime] which had been extracted under torture, getting to a conviction was just a matter of judicial acrobatics bridging the confessions with the contradictory evidence which was found in the field.”

Indeed, one of the gravest aspects of the conviction is the stark inconsistencies between all the eyewitness accounts of the arson and the acts admitted by Ben Uliel in his confession, which formed the foundation of his conviction.

Moreover, as we shall see, when such contradictions emerged, the Court seemed eager to provide an alternative explanation to override any benefit, which  such contradiction might provide the accused.

When several became one?

Significantly, all witnesses reported that at least two assailants were involved, while Ben-Uliel confessed to acting completely on his own.

Moreover, witnesses reported that the assailants arrived and left the village in two motor vehicles. In his confession, Ben-Uliel claimed he entered and exited the village on foot.

Ironically, even members of the Dawabsheh family were at the time highly skeptical as to the veracity of Ben-Uliel’s confession.

In a July 2016 interview, a year after the lethal arson, Hussein  Dawabsheh , grandfather of the infant who died in the blaze, expressed his skepticism at the purported confession. Citing the account of his other grandson, five-year-old Ahmad, the sole survivor of the attack, he stated: “Ahmad said he saw a number of people. He could not say how many but he talked about several men who beat his father.”

Dawabsheh also wondered how only one man could carry out the attack: “I do not believe it. It needs a number of people—not one or two. Who can enter the village and do this alone. People saw two cars leaving the village.” With considerable justification, he asked: “How can it be one man with two cars? It’s not logical.”

Curiouser and curiouser?

Indeed, on the very day of the arson (July 31, 2015), several mainstream media entities published numerous reports of eyewitness accounts on what transpired just several hours before. All of them mention multiple assailants.

Thus, for example in the international press:

Amy Davidson of The New Yorker wrote: “The house had been set on fire by men who… are believed to be Jewish settlers.… Eyewitnesses saw FOUR men, who fled to the settlement of Ma’aleh Efraim.”

Jodi Rudoren and Diaa Hadid, reported in the New York Times: “Two witnesses said they saw TWO masked men outside the house watching as the family burned.”

In the local media:

Jack Khoury, Chaim Levinson, and Gili Cohen told Haaretz readers: “According to witnesses… TWO masked men arrived at two homes in the village of Duma… They spray-painted graffiti… in Hebrew, breaking the windows of the homes and throwing two firebombs inside… Local resident Mesalem Daoubasah said he saw FOUR settlers fleeing the scene, with several local residents following in pursuit…”.

Amira Hass, a radical pro-Palestinian journalist, recounted in Haaretz: “A relative of the Dawabsha family, whose house was torched early Friday in a terror attack that killed 18-month-old Ali Sa’ad Dawabsha, has told Haaretz that he saw TWO masked men standing next to the infant’s parents as they lay burning on the ground outside their home.”

Furthermore, expert graphological examination of the Hebrew graffiti on the walls of torched houses in Duma found a “complete lack of similarity” between Ben Uliel’s handwriting and the graffiti, as well clear indications that the graffiti was written by two different people—contradicting both the claim that Ben Uliel sprayed the grafitti and his  confession that he acted alone.

However, according to Haaretz, “In their ruling, the judges wrote that it was impossible to know, based on the evidence they saw, whether there was another perpetrator in the crime. ‘The possibility that the accused is concealing another person who was with him is not unfounded’.”

So, in the absence of any evidence to support the confession, the judges simply speculate there might conceivably be such evidence—but the prosecution merely failed to produce it!!!

The ‘small’ matter of common sense

As before, the principle of assumption of innocence does not mandate that the defendant prove that possibly incriminating conditions are unfounded. To the contrary, it mandates that the prosecution prove that they are well-founded!

Indeed, this would certainly tend to corroborate the defense’s previous claim that—in order to secure a conviction—the judges were engaged in “judicial acrobatics bridging the confessions with the contradictory evidence which was found in the field.”

But the apparent vagaries in judicial conduct are not the only difficulty that arise with the conviction. There is also the “small” matter of common sense.

Indeed, immediately after Ben Uliel was indicted, Chaim Levinson of Haaretz wrote:

“Apart from the difficulty with the admissibility of the confessions, two additional substantial problems arise. The Shin Bet [Israel’s internal security service] were always convinced that the act was committed by a group. Yet Ben Uliel claims he was alone. Prime facie, his version that he arrived on foot alone, then prepared the fire bomb on the spot and [after torching the houses] fled, raises questions.”

Stretching the bounds of credibility

Levinson points out trenchantly: “No such event of this kind has ever been perpetrated by one person alone. The second problem is the question of the car. During the investigation, an 18-year old man was arrested on suspicion that his car was used in the arson attack. Together with him, another 30-year old man was arrested…In any event, if there are indications that a car was involved in the arson, how did Ben Uliel commit the attack on foot?”

Indeed, the confession, the methods by which it was obtained and the discrepancies with all eyewitness accounts, raise deeply disturbing questions.

For, to give credence to the claim that Ben-Uliel is indeed guilty as charged, what do we necessarily have to believe?

We would have to believe that: Ben-Uliel, a then-recently married man and father of an infant girl, without any Special Forces training; (a) had the “cojones” and skill, not only to walk over five kilometers—late at night—undetected and unarmed, to reach the village; (b) he by-passed numerous, more-exposed, alternative targets on the outskirts of the village; (c) he managed to infiltrate, again, undetected and unarmed, into the center of an unfriendly village; (d) set one uninhabited building ablaze; (e) then, still undetected, sprayed copious amounts of paint to write the incriminating Hebrew graffiti; (f) then torched the Dawabsheh home; and (f) finally, make a phantom-like escape, egressing the village without trace, never mind being apprehended, leaving no clue to indicate where he had vanished to—all this entirely on his own!! Really?

Ominous and onerous misgivings…

Of course, it should be underscored that he did all this, apparently, without arranging for any back-up contingency for extricating himself, should he be discovered and set upon (read “lynched”) by the inhabitants of the village?

But that’s not all. If Ben-Uliel was merely looking for a random Arab target, why would he not choose a house on the outskirts of the village rather than one in the center, making escape easier? And why would he choose Duma –a village in which the Dawabsheh clan’s homes were being regularly targeted anyway? Perhaps under “enhanced interrogation”, he came up with a plausible answer?

These are all deeply troubling questions, which should be a source of grave concern to every fair-minded citizen of Israel and its advocates abroad.

But perhaps the most disturbing aspect raised by the cloud of doubt, enveloping the Duma-related legal proceedings, is the very tangible possibility that the real perpetrators of the gruesome 2015 murders are still roaming around free—secure in the knowledge that someone else will be punished for the atrocity they committed.

We can only hope that the planned appeal will help disperse some of these ominous and onerous misgivings.

Martin Sherman is the founder and executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies

The post Analysis: Grave misgivings remain about Jewish ‘terrorist’s’ guilt in Duma murders appeared first on World Israel News.

In its conviction, the court stated that it believed husband Amiram’s confession, even if he had been tortured prior to giving the police his statement.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Orian Ben Uliel, wife of the man who was convicted Monday of killing several members of an Arab family in a firebombing in 2015, protested her husband’s innocence in an interview with the religious Srugim website Tuesday.

“He did not do it,” Orian said.

“My husband was with me in the house that whole night… We also brought witnesses [but] the court simply ignored it. The police also ignored it at the time. They refused to interrogate me even though our lawyer requested it, since we had no way of coordinating [the testimonies], we didn’t see him, he was isolated and couldn’t meet a lawyer.”

Orian dismissed the fact that Amiram had confessed to the crime, because of the torture he had undergone while in custody of the Shin Bet security agency.

“He underwent hundreds of hours of interrogation, for 17 days they didn’t let him sleep, they just questioned him,” she explained.

“He experienced inhuman torture. They tied him with his head down and back twisted, with his hands and legs handcuffed beneath his chair, while beating him fiercely over a seven-hour period, until he could no longer stand it… and confessed.

“They threatened that the second he refused to cooperate, he’d be taken back to the torture chamber. He couldn’t stand this hell, he was helpless, he couldn’t even speak to a lawyer. To this day he has nightmares,” Orian said.

Part of Ben Uliel’s confession regarding the attack on the Dawabshe family home in the village of Duma was thrown out in 2018.

The judges decided he had spoken during or immediately after suffering the extreme methods used by the “Jewish Department” of Israel’s security service. In their decision, however, they said that statements he made days after undergoing “enhanced interrogation” could be used against him.

Ben Uliel’s lawyers contended that those statements should be dismissed as well, because his ongoing fear of being tortured again led him to falsely admit culpability.

Ben Uliel had run-ins with the authorities before, while living in Shiloh. He was convicted of violating an administrative order barring him from the region and of scuffling with security forces when they came to forcefully evacuate Jewish residents from an outpost.

Orian says that they’ll appeal the conviction to the Supreme Court, though she said she has doubts whether they will find justice there.

“Unfortunately, my confidence in the court really went down,” she said. “I was sure today that he would be acquitted. I was in shock that it’s possible to convict an innocent person. I hope that there, justice will prevail.”

The Lod District Court convicted Amiram on a total of three counts of murder and two counts each of attempted murder and arson. He was acquitted of the charge of membership in a terrorist organization.

The post Wife of man convicted of triple homicide: We’ll go to Israel’s supreme court appeared first on World Israel News.

“A justice system that respects human dignity cannot accept confessions made under duress as valid evidence,” the court ruled.

By: Ilan Evyatar/TPS

Confessions obtained through the use of “enhanced interrogation” techniques were inadmissible as evidence, the Lod District Court ruled Tuesday.

However, the court ruled that key confessions repeated later by the main suspect in a 2015 arson attack that killed three members of a Palestinian family were valid.

The defendants, Amiram Ben Uliel and an unnamed minor, are charged with membership in a terrorist organization and planning the July 2015 firebomb attack in the village of Duma near Nablus (Shechem) in Samaria, while Ben Uliel is also charged with executing the attack in which three members of the Dawabshe family were burned to death and a fourth suffered severe injuries.

The court ruled that while Uliel’s confession under enhanced interrogation, including physical means, that he carried out the Duma attack was invalid, his repetition of the confession 36 hours later to interrogators from the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), which was videotaped, could stand.

Ulilel’s lawyers had claimed that the fact that he was questioned shortly after undergoing enhanced interrogation meant that the defendant was not in fact making a confession of his own free will, but rather was doing so under duress. However, the court said that video of the interrogation showed the defendant was making a conscious choice about what to admit and what to deny and that his body language showed he was exercising free will.

With regard to the minor, the court ruled that while confessions obtained through the use of stool pigeons to whom he admitted to lesser charges of arson and belonging to a terrorist organization were admissible, all confessions obtained through the use of advanced interrogation and during follow-up investigations conducted after and in between the use of enhanced interrogation, in which he admitted to involvement in planning the Duma attack, were not admissible. The court noted that the minor had been subjected to enhanced interrogation on three occasions, that he had in real time expressed fears of being subjected to further enhanced interrogation and that he had required treatment for psychiatric difficulties in the wake of the final enhanced interrogation session.

Furthermore, the court noted, follow up interrogations were not videotaped, denying the court the ability to independently assess the climate during those sessions.

Decision ‘received with bitter sweetness’

“The decision to invalidate the defendant’s confessions is received with bitter sweetness,” said defense attorney Zion Amir. “It took two and a half years to reach a ruling that we saw as obvious from the beginning. The decision will have dramatic effects on the Israeli justice system, by which all investigating units, whether it be the police or the Shin Bet, must act in adherence to the law and not employ inadmissible methods.

“We congratulate the court on its courage,” he added.

“It’s clear that the Shin Bet caused physical pain and suffering in order to get [the defendant] to confess,” said Yitzhak Bam, a member of Ben Uliel’s defense team. “A justice system that respects human dignity cannot accept confessions made under duress as valid evidence. The fear of continued torture was the only thing that made the defendant continually confess [to the crimes] in between rounds of torture.”

On the other hand, prosecutors and members of the Dawabsheh family criticized the ruling. “If the defendants were not Israeli, something completely different would have happened. They would have gotten the death penalty on the spot, without waiting for due process,” said Hussain Dawabsheh, Ali’s grandfather.

The post Israeli court nixes Jewish terror suspect’s confessions under torture appeared first on World Israel News.