Testimony: F.M.J.
Name: | F.M.J. |
Age: | 14 |
Date of incident: | 23 March 2015 |
Location: | Beit Ummar, West Bank |
Accusation: | Throwing stones/Molotovs |
On 23 March 2015, a 14-year-old minor from Beit Ummar was verbally summonsed at 2.00 a.m. by Israeli soldiers and told to appear for interrogation later that day. He reports being denied his basic legal rights under Israeli military law. He reports being sentenced to 7 days in prison and fined NIS 1,000.
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Thirty minutes later an intelligence officer took me inside. My father asked the officer if he could accompany me during the interrogation but the officer refused and told my father to wait outside while he inquired. He took my father’s identity card and took me inside the police station where he made me sit outside the interrogation room for about an hour. He then returned my father's identity card and told him to go home. I was then taken into an interrogation room.
The interrogator did not inform me of any rights. He immediately started to interrogate me and accused me of throwing stones and Molotov cocktail at soldiers. I told him this was not true and that I never threw anything at soldiers. The interrogator got angry and started to bang the table aggressively. He accused me of lying and started to swear at me, cursing my religion. He then showed me a photograph of a boy holding a piece of cloth on fire and told me the boy in the photograph was me. I told him it wasn’t me in the photograph.
The interrogator then told me I had two choices: either I tell him who the boy in the photograph was and give him his name or I confess that the boy was me. I told him I didn’t know the boy and that the photograph was not of me.
In the end I decided to confess to throwing stones because I was afraid that the interrogator might falsely accuse me of throwing Molotov cocktails and have me convicted. The interrogator printed out a document in Hebrew and asked me to sign it. I signed it although I didn’t understand what it said. I was then photographed and fingerprinted.
The interrogation lasted about 30 minutes. When the interrogation was over I was taken to a prison cell where I remained until 3.00 p.m. I was then handcuffed and shackled and driven to Ofer prison, near Jerusalem. On arrival at Ofer I was strip searched before being taken to Section 13.
The following day I was taken to Ofer military court. A lawyer was there but my parents did not attend. The hearing was adjourned until the next day. The following day I was taken back to the military court. This time my parents attended and so did my lawyer. The hearing was adjourned until the 30 March 2015. On 30 March 2015, I went back to the military court and was fined NIS 1,000. The military judge also sentenced me to time already served. My father paid the fine and I was released on 1 April 2015.