Guide: = Translator S Comments Or Additions

Guide:[ ] = translator’s comments or additions

… = Personal information of non-official persons

Unless otherwise noted, court rulings cited are in Hebrew.

[Affidavits of Petitioner, As’ad Abu Ghosh]

18 Oct 2007As’ad Abu Ghosh

Petah Tikva [Detention Center]

Affidavit

I the undersigned, As’ad Mahmoud Namer Abu Ghosh, I.D. No. 953601846, from Nablus, Balata Refugee Camp, born on Jun 1, 1975, married with four daughters between the ages of five months and six years, after being warned that I must testify truthfully or else I may expect the punishments set down in law, testify to the following:

I was arrested from my home on 3 Sep 2007 at around 3 in the morning.
The regional commander and his soldiers came to arrest me. I know the commander because I have encountered him on more than one occasion – Captain Mor.
Some of the soldiers had black paint on their faces; some did not.
They knocked on the door and we went outside. I live on the second floor. They asked my parents to call my brother Amjad (who is being held under administrative detention at Megiddo Prison) and I. They put me in one of the rooms of the house. The Captain asked me where the weapon was, I told him there was none. If he was forced to search, the captain said, there was no such thing as a quiet search; he would be forced to break things in the house.
After a moment, he shackled my hands behind my back with metal handcuffs, covered my eyes and seated me on the floor of the room.

5.He called my brother and asked about the weapon. He too said there was no weapon. The Captainbegan smashing Amjad’s head on the wall. I heard my brother’s head banging against the wall and his screamsfrom the pain of the blows. He did this 4-5 times.

They left us and I heard them break everything in the house. They broke and threw everything – the bed, all the kitchen appliances, everything hanging on the walls. I saw this two days later when they took me to the house again.
After they finished breaking and searching,Captain Mor lifted my blindfold and showed me a gun they had found in the house, and began to beat and kick me in the stomach and chest.
Mor: Red-headed, fat, short or medium height. I know him because he has arrested me more than once.
They separated us (my brother and I) and I heard him screaming from the blows; my sisters also screamed and asked why they were hitting him.
They took us to the military vehicle. It was somewhat far away, about 150 meters. They dragged me the whole way – I couldn’t walk – and at a certain point, one of the soldiers pulled and raised me from behind by my shackled hands and he and another soldier brought me to the military vehicle.
When we arrived I was thrown on the floor of the vehicle. When they threw me like this I found myself facing the floor with my hands behind me up in the air.
The whole journey, about one hour, I was in this position. There were several soldiers around me – I heard no fewer than five or six. They hit me the whole way, all of them, mostly in the legs but they hit and kicked me all over. One of them, the one who was on my left side, hit me in the stomach especially and on the sides and grabbed my head and slammed it into the floor of the vehicle. Once in a while he gave me a blow with the butt of his rifle.
I could not hear my brother, and apparently I was alone in the vehicle, without him (there were dogs in the search but they did not touch me and were not in the vehicle).
After about an hour we arrived at Huwarra. They took me to the doctor. He asked if I have any illnesses.
I told the doctor that I had a disc [problem] and a problem with my right knee. I have chronic inflammation there, and I was suffering from a headache.
He gave me Muscol [paracetamol and orphenadrine], about 10 pills, and told me to take one a day.
I underwent a search, and the soldier at the deposit booth [where detainees deposit their possessions] asked me if I had been beaten or tortured. I said that I had and I signed for my possessions in front of him. I dictated and he wrote down that I had been beaten during my arrest. He asked for names and I told him I’d heard them calling someone Kafkazi. That is the one who slammed my head onto the floor of the jeep (the military vehicle) and was the most violent of them. He asked if I wanted to complain and I said yes; then he had me sign my complaint.
I was brought to a room with six or seven other young men. Later my brother was brought to this room. I stayed there for an hour or two, until they came to take me for interrogation – I was transferred to Petah Tikva.
I arrived in Petah Tikva and was brought before a doctor, who asked if I had any illnesses. I told him what I had said at Huwarra. He took the medication – the Muscol – away and said that when I had pains he would send me a pill. The policemen [prison guards?] do not distribute the medication easily.
I finished with the doctor and was immediately transferred to interrogation. The interrogator Yoel was in the interrogation room. He told me that he was the Deputy [Director], and that this was a large and important interrogation facility, the harshest and most serious one, not like Kishon.
Yoel said he wanted information on a certain person. He wrote the person’s name on a piece of paper, folded the paper and wanted me to guess the name. He said that within one hour he wanted me to tell him everything I knew about the person, or I would be responsible for what would happen.
He showed me a document detailing my rights, which stated thatthey could hold me for a period of 109 days and extend this period as they saw fit.
I kept silent or said that I did not know who they meant, and that I would not guess the name on the paper.
I should note that immediately upon entering the interrogation room they seated me on a chair affixed to the ground and shackled both my hands behind my back.
He left me there alone for an hour and then returned, asking if I had been able to guess the name of the person he’d written down on the folded paper.
I did not guess. He threw out a nickname and asked if I could guess now. I said no.
Several interrogators entered; the Major who I believe is known as Segal sat next to me and began to ask questions. When I did not answer he began to hit me. At first he slapped me, then with his hand closed into a fist he punched me in the chest (fist blows to the chest).
He told me that this was Petah Tikva, not Jalame, where people talk and stand no chance of remaining silent; he listed the names of famous [prisoners] who he’d made to speak.
They left me shackled alone until 8 or 9 in the evening, when Yoel and Arad entered. Yoel said Arad would take care of me and spend the whole night with me.
At about 3 AM, I told Arad that I wanted to make a deal with him. I promised to tell everything about whoever he wanted if he would let me sleep. I wanted time to sleep and rest.
After negotiations, he agreed and sent me to the isolation cell to sleep.
I washed my hands and slept for about two hours. And in the morning when they passed out the food at 6 or 6:30, they woke me up and I ate and drank for the first time since Huwarra. I ate and then they brought me upstairs.
I was once again shackled to the chair. Amos, Yoel, Segal, Herzl, and Doronintroduced each other to me, and were all there with me at the same time.
Yoel and Segal asked questions about the man, whose name they finally spoke. They were not satisfied with what I said. They departed, leaving me there alone.
They returned about half an hour later. They told me that beatings were forbidden but I would be subjected to a military interrogation for which they had received special permission from the Supreme Court.
I knew that they really could not torture and beat me unless they had received special permission and I understood that they had received such an authorization.
They released my hands and stood me up with my back to the wall. My hands were then shackled behind my back so that I could not protect myself. Then theabuse began.
First, Segal slapped my face. Yoel said he was a friend and would not strike me. Then all the other interrogators came in and they did hit me.
Segal grabbed me by the front of my shirt and threw my body, my back, against the wall. This continued for some minutes and then he would throw me sideways to another interrogator, who would fling me back to Segal. They played with me like this; every time they threw me hurt greatly. This continued for 20-30 minutes.
Then they seated me on a chair so that the backrest was on my left and my back was in the air. My hands were still shackled behind my back. One of them grabbed my legs and wrapped my feet behind the legs of the chair. Yoel grabbed my legs and twisted my body backwards at a certain angle. He told me I must sustain this position, and that if I moved in any direction I would be hit.
I didn’t last for a long time. […?] I have back pain and suffer from a disc; every time I moved or wanted to sit down normally, to straighten up on the chair, Segal struck my neck and arm (shoulder) and my side opposite the kidneys, from the side with his hand.
They worked with a stopwatch, looking at the watch to decide whether to change torture methods. They explained that each method was limited to a set amount of time.
When I fell backwards sometimes, Herzlwould grab my hands from behind by the handcuffs and pull them back, throwing them powerfully against the chair. So I received strong blows through the handcuffs and sometimes the hands themselves struck the chair.
They stood me up against the wall again and allowed me to slip down so that my legs became bent to a certain angle. My body reached the position he decided upon, and he told me that I must hold this position without moving or standing up.
Every time I moved he kneed me in the stomach.
Every time I fell down I was beaten and they would stand me up again, until the time they had allotted for this method was done – about half an hour.
He sat me down in the chair once again and they repeated the torture method of backward bending and beating.
Yoel allowed me to rest for a moment. He removed the handcuffs and told me that I’d only just begun but that my health would not allow me to continue. Therefore [he said], we would stop and try to get along.
They removed the handcuffs and from the interrogation room they took me home. We passed through Huwarra and from there to the house.
At home we found the soldiers there searching.
They found liquid materials there and asked about them. I heard the sound of an explosion and later they told me they had blown up the room and not the whole house.
I went back [to Petah Tikva], rested for about 3 hours and then was returned to interrogation.
Back again to the same chair and the same shackling.
They said that if I did not speak, they had authorization to paralyze me, to do a harsher military interrogation.
They threatened to arrest my mother and my wife. I told them that this would not help, since neither of them knew anything.
They gave a final ultimatum. My handcuffs were removed and I was left alone in order to reconsider and confess.
After some time, about half an hour, they returned.
They returned. When Yoel discovered that I was not willing to talk, he called Segal, Doron, Herzl, and Amos. They all began to ask questions. When they didn’t like the answers or when I did not provide information on a certain person, they began the torture methods again.
Beating, bending backwards on the chair. Standing and sliding down from the wall, kneeling on the toes and blows when I fall. This continued for hours and hours until the evening. The interrogator told me that he was going home to rest and that the others would continue with me.
I continued to say that I did not know a thing. At 1 AM they decided to put me through some new techniques:
They (Herzl and Doron) brought handcuffs. They cuffed each hand separately. Each one grabbed a hand and a handcuff and both pushed with all their strength on the hand they had a hold of. Several times they tightened and pressed, each time for 5-10 minutes.
Between every backwards cuffing they would put me through the techniques I spoke about earlier.
My hands became swollen and took on a blue color.
We remained like this until 3 or 4 AM, when Colonel Mofaz (that’s how he introduced himself) arrived. He told me that nobody had withstood what I had undergone without confessing and that I ought to put an end to this. Mofaz took the leg shackles and put a cuff on each hand on the arm, below the elbow. Mofaz was noticeably muscular, and he fastened my arms and tightened the cuffs very, very strongly. He began to toy with my fingers; every time he moved the fingers I felt they were going to break.
I screamed. He claimed that everything was being done legally by [court] order and that only I could decide whether to stop it. All of this was accompanied by vulgar curses and spitting in my face.
At some point, Yoel arrived and said that it was 7 am, and realized that I had not talked.
Yoel said that I obviously could not continue even though they had only just begun.
They sent me to cell 9. I rested for a while after they let me shower.
In the afternoon they took me again. Yoel posed questions and I either confirmed or denied them.
I remained in the interrogation room on the interrogation chair with the handcuffs behind my back until 8pm.
The next day they took me to a polygraph machine and claimed that I had lied.
They continued to do this for three days; then I refused to continue being examined on the machine because I understood there was no point.
On Sunday of that same week I was told that I was finished. They asked that I write down my testimony.
I wrote down a testimony regarding the things I wanted to. I refused to list things that were not true.
They took me down to cell 9 for total isolation. I was held in solitary confinement for 12 days.
After the 12 days Yoel sent for me. He told me that I would be taken to court and that he wanted to help me out by reducing the indictment counts if I talked.
My detention was extended 21 days at Petah Tikva [Military Court].
I was returned to solitary and was not interrogated save for one time, a regular interrogation with no violence.
At this point the physical torture ended. They only threatened that they had the possibility of taking out authorization for another, even harsher interrogation.
I met a woman from the Red Cross and told her about everything that had happened. I asked her to file a complaint for me. She sent a man who wrote down a complaint for me.
After the 21 days were up, my detention was extended for another fifteen days, which will be up next Wednesday.
Since then I have not been interrogated.
Just last Thursday, I was brought before some people who said they were weapons experts and wanted to consult with me about materials.
I told them what I knew.
I suspected they wanted to set me up for a new indictment count. But they were not violent.
Since then they haven’t interrogated or spoken with me.
I am no longer in solitary confinement, and am no longer being interrogated. I only gave one confession and am now waiting.

Contact person: my wife Iman (tel. no.)

I hereby confirm that on 18 Oct 2007, Mr. As’ad Abu Ghosh I.D. No. 953601846 testified before Atty. Taghreed Shbeita at Sharon Prison, and that he was warned that he must testify truthfully or expect the punishments set in the law, and that after I translated the affidavit for him he signed it.

I confirm that this is my name and my signature and that the contents of this affidavit are truthful.[signature]

I the undersigned continue my affidavit from 18.10.07

The shackling in the interrogation room – As’ad Abu Ghosh

1.Metal handcuffs.
Hands cuffed behind the back and shackled to the chair, to the lock behind the backrest.

2.The hands behind the backrest.

3.The backrest of the chair is low but when I am handcuffed I slide on the chair such that the back of the chair presses against my arms.