Torture charge against Israel

Press, 4 March 1980, Page 9

Torture charge against Israel

NZPA-Reuter Beirut n A Palestinian activist re- p leased from an Israeli jail in fc a rare exchange of prisoners has accused Israel of syste- 1 matic physical and psy- s chological torture in its pris- c ons. . The allegations were made t in an interview by William i Nassar, one of two Palestin- \ ians freed last month and J flown to Larnaca Airport in e Cyprus in exchange for Amina Mufti, a Jordanian- 1 born medical doctor held by s the Palestine Liberation Or- ] ganisation since 1975 after i being found guilty of work- < ing for Mossad, the Israeli < intelligence service. 1 In an interview with the i Beirut weekly, “Monday 1 Morning,” Mr Nassar accused the Israeli authorities 1 of physical and intellectual I persecution of Palestinian j prisoners and torture i methods ranging from beatings to prolonged blindfold- : ing and suspending prisoners bv their hands. ' Mr Nassar was freed after serving 12 years of five consecutive life sentences passed on him for being a member of Mr Yasser Arafat’s guerrilla organisation, Fatah, and for acts of violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank of the River Jordan. Describing interrogation bv the Israeli authorities after his 1968 capture, Mr Nassar told “Monday Morning”: “The methods used to extract confessions at this stage can be described as

normal. They included slaps, punches, electric shocks, and beating with sticks ... “Another method was to lock one of us up in a very small cell, making him kneel' on a mattress drenched with urine. His hands would be tied to his feet in the back, and in front of him there would be an open sewer producing unbearable odours every two or three minutes. Mr Nassar said he had helped organise a prisoners’ strike in protest against physical ill-treatment. As a result, he said, he and two other inmates were taken to a prison in Ashkelon on the Israeli coast where Israeli guards were waiting for them. ' , . “We were placed in solitary confinement ’ and flogged with cables three times a day, just after meals. We started fearing . food because we -associated it with torture,” he said. i Charges of torture in Israeli prisons, consistently ■ denied-by . the Israeli author- . ities, have been investigated ; by a number of humani rights groups, including the . L o n d o n-based Amnesty , International. Amnesty said in its 1979 i report that it had received - what it termed credible testimony to back up charges i that ill-treatment of prison--5 ers was not limited to the r practice of a few over-zeal- - ous officials, but was systeo matic and’ required at least s the tacit approval of higher s authorities.