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The IDF court in Ofer Prison in West Bank. Photo by JINI
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Cites settler opposition to evacuations in ordering release on bail of Palestinian accused of assaulting border policemen; accused remains in prison, though.

by Amira Hass for Haaretz
published July 14,2015

A military judge recently cited the response of opponents of the Gaza disengagement plan, as well as the evacuation of the West Bank settlement outpost Amona, in explaining his decision to free on bail a Palestinian arrested while trying to prevent the destruction of the electricity infrastructure in his neighborhood.

Mohib Zgarna, from the Bedouin village of Ramadin in the southwest West Bank, was accused of assaulting a border policeman who was part of a contingent that accompanied Civil Administration inspectors who destroyed the infrastructure on May 7. Zgarna, 17, denies the allegations. His father and other residents of the village say they had implored the Civil Administration officials to wait an hour so they could call their lawyer to try and cancel the demolition order. When the inspectors refused, a scuffle broke out, and Zgarna said he saw his father being attacked by policemen and ran to help him.

The judge, Lt. Col. Shmuel Keidar, who ordered Zgarna released on 5,000 shekels ($1,324) bail on June 29, wrote, “We cannot expect a person not to resist the destruction of his home, just as people from all sectors in the country have done, as in the examples of Yamit, Gush Katif, Amona, Givat Amal [in Tel Aviv] and elsewhere. In all these instances there were (several) homeowners who took violent measures and were arrested, but it doesn’t seem to me that they were held longer than a few days for questioning and not until the end of legal proceedings against them.”

The prosecution has appealed the decision; as a result, two weeks after the decision to release him, Zgarna is still in jail.

Last Wednesday, the deputy president of the Military Appeals Court, Lt. Col. Zvi Lekah, heard the arguments for and against Zgarna’s release. Military prosecutor Capt. Gilad Peretz said that even if the residents’ claims are correct in that the demolition was unlawful because it should have been dealt with in a legal proceeding, that isn’t a reason to attack a policeman “with a stone the size of a grapefruit.”

He argued that the youth posed a serious risk and he could not be trusted to show up for a trial. The defense attorney, Ahlam Hadad, said that this was not the accused’s pattern of behavior and there was no concern that he would be violent again.

Releasing Zgarna on bail would allow his defense attorney to work on his defense without time pressure; she would be able to question witnesses, find the internal contradictions in their testimonies, and compare them to the testimonies of the residents. Such a process is liable to take longer than the prison term appropriate to the crime, in the event Zgarna is convicted. Therefore, if he isn’t released on bail, to avoid having Zgarna remain in jail longer than his eventual sentence, Hadad is liable to agree to a plea bargain without the border policemen having to deal with the contradictions in their versions of events.

Contradictions in testimony?

During the hearing last Wednesday, Hadad raised one of the most prominent alleged contradictions in the border policemen’s testimonies. As she recounted, border policeman Idan Barami claimed that the accused ran at him holding a stone and hit him on the head when he wasn’t wearing a helmet. The accused, Barami said, continued to run and two policemen chased him, caught him and subdued him. In contrast, another policeman, Ron Cohen, said that he saw a youth hit Barami with a stone, but that Barami subdued the youth by himself and brought him to the ground. Cohen said he helped Barami handcuff the suspect. Hadad also told the hearing that although Barami claimed he was hit with a stone the size of a grapefruit, there are no medical records of his having suffered any injury.

During the 1990s the Civil Administration approved a master plan for the residents of Ramadin, which is located on one of two ancient permanent Bedouin encampments from before the state’s founding in 1948. Access to the lands of the second encampment, where Kibbutz Lahav is located today, has been blocked since then. Ramadin is considered part of Area B, which is under Palestinian civilian control.

The master plan does not include the Sadri neighborhood in which the Zgarna family lives. In that neighborhood most of the homes were built before 1967 or immediately after the occupation of the West Bank by the Israel Defense Forces, which is why the Civil Administration cannot define them as illegal construction. The neighborhood, however, is located in Area C, in which Israel has full civil and military control, and in Area C Israel does not allow Palestinians to make new infrastructure connections. To this day, neighborhood residents rely on pits filled with rainwater or water purchased from tankers and they cannot build structures or add rooms to accommodate natural growth.

Until 2008, the residents operated generators to provide a limited amount of electricity, but that year the Palestinian electric company connected them to its grid, at the residents’ expense. The Civil Administration issued demolition orders against these electricity pylons in April 2012. During that same month the Israeli government agreed to approve the illegally built outpost of Sansana, which is located only a few hundred meters from the Sadri neighborhood.

Attorney Alaa Mahagna, who is representing the entire Zgarna family in its case against the demolition of the electric lines and homes in their neighborhood, says that the demolition itself was illegal. A few days before it was carried out, he had come to an understanding with the Civil Administration on an extension that would give the residents time to prove their ownership of the land. Immediately after the incident on May 7, Mahagna petitioned the High Court of Justice to cancel the demolition orders. Justice Uri Shoham issued a temporary restraining order and then an interim order forbidding the demolitions to continue until the petition is heard.