Wife of the oldest administrative detainee calls for his release

Friday June 27, 2008 00:31 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News

Wife of detainee, Adnan Hamarsha, voiced an appeal to Human Rights Groups and the International Community to intervene for the release of her husband who has been imprisoned by Israel under administrative detention without charges for more than five consecutive years.

Ahrar Center

The Israeli Prison Authorities renewed the administrative detention orders against Hamarsha 18 times without pressing charges against him.

His wife told the Ahrar Center for Detainees Studies that he was kidnapped by the army on December, 28, 2003, which means that he has been in detention for 54 months.

Hamarsha is currently detained at the Negev Detention Camp. He was born on October 5, 1965 and is a father of six children.

The Ahrar center stated that there are more than 1000 detainees imprisoned under administrative detention orders, and that the only reason for their continued detention is a claim by the Israeli security that they are considered “a threat to the security of the area”.

Lawyers defending detainees who are imprisoned under administrative detention orders are not allowed to see their files since Israel labels the files of administrative detainees as “secret files”, which means that even the lawyer cannot know what charges, if any, are pressed against the detainees.

It is worth mentioning that Hamarsha spent more than 10 years in Israeli prisons for his political activities. But now, as he is imprisoned under administrative detention orders, each order for six months, his family lives on a hope that he would be released but this hope vanishes each time these orders are renewed.

Usually the Israeli Authorities inform the detainee that his detention order had been renewed only one day before he is to be set free, and in some cases, the detainee is informed of the renewal on the same day as he is preparing to be set free in a matter of hours.

The Ahrar Center appealed human rights groups to intervene and highlight the case of Hamarsha who is also suffering from several chronic diseases, including high blood pressure and asthma.

Head of the center, Fuad Al Khoffash, stated that there should be intervention by international law groups and lawyers in order to expose this issue and the illegal Israeli practices against the Palestinian detainees.

palestine | prisoners | news report saed at imemc dot org