Hashem Mufleh
18 August 1998
Hashem Mufleh
SUMMARY: Hashem Mufleh, American-born eighteen-year-old from New Mexico, was arrested on August 18 at Ben Gurion airport as he was boarding a plane to return to his homeland to attend the University of New Mexico. During the next eleven days he was tortured and interrogated by the dreaded Shin Bet at Ashkelon Prison in Israel. When he refused to sign confessions offered in Hebrew (which he does not know) his interrogators threatened to rape his mother and sister and sodomize him. A “charge sheet” was issued September 22 by a military court before a single judge. The hearing was held at the same time that his attorney was being told by prison authorities that a scheduled appointment with Mufleh could not be held because they didn’t know where he was. A trial date of November 4 has been set.
PERSONAL INFORMATION: Hashem Mufleh is the eighteen-year-old son of Hisham and Itaf Mufleh the youngest of four children. Ola (sister) is married and lives in Detroit; Alaa (brother) is attending college in Pompano Beach, Florida; and Alia (sister) lives in Ramallah (El Bireh), Palestine (“Area A” which has been ceded to the Palestinian Authority for full civil control).
Hashem’s grandfather emigrated from Palestine more than fifty years ago and became a naturalized American citizen. He lived in New Mexico and went back to his family in El Bireh frequently. Hashem’s father was born on one of these visits in Palestine and in the late sixties emigrated to the United States. He returned to marry Itaf and bring her with him to Gallup New Mexico where they have lived (with periodic visits to their families in El Bireh) ever since. Itaf’s brother, Abed Hafeth (“Eddie”) Hamad is an American citizen, married and lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
In 1996 Hisham’s parents decided that he should go to high school in Palestine in order to maintain the ability to connect with relatives there and with his cultural heritage. His mother remained in El Bireh in order to supervise her son while his father returned to his job in Gallup, New Mexico, returning every year for two to three months.
ARREST: Hisham and his mother Itaf obtained Israeli travel documents in order to go from the Palestinian “island” of Ramallah/El Bireh to Ben Gurion airport in Israel to return to the United States where Hisham was to attend the University of New Mexico. On August 18 he was seized at the airport by military police and taken into custody as he and his mother were boarding the plane. When his mother protested and asked if there were any charges against him the officials replied that they were just taking him for a routine check. Itaf waited in the airport for seven hours until she was asked to leave, and finally returned to Ramallah. When Hashem’s relatives sought help from the US Consulate it was learned that Hashem had been taken to Ashkelon Prison, a military prison some forty miles from Jerusalem. This is the prison to which “detainees” are taken for interrogation by Shin Bet, a military unit in Israel known for their brutal techniques, and where hard-core prisoners serving long-term sentences are kept.
NEXT ELEVEN DAYS: For eleven days following his arrest on August 18, Hashem was allowed no visitors. The US Consul was not allowed to see him, his attorney was not allowed to see him, and his family was not allowed to see him. During this period, according to reports from both his lawyer, Jonathan Kuttab, and the US Consul at the Embassy in Tel Aviv, Hashem reports that he was subjected to torture and interrogation. He was very specific about the acts of torture: 1. A urine-soaked hood was placed over his head; 2. He was tied in a contorted position with his back arched over a chair and his hands and feet tied together; 3. He was subjected to loud music and deprived of sleep.
When he was interrogated he was offered the opportunity to sign a “confession” written in Hebrew and he refused. When he continued to refuse to sign these papers and told his interrogators that he was innocent, they told him that if he didn’t sign, his mother and sister would be raped and Hashem would be sodomized.
At the end of eleven days of torture and interrogation the US Consul, Todd Haskell and his attorney, Jonathan Kuttab, were allowed to visit him and at this time they both reported that Hashem showed all the signs of the kind of torture which Hashem described and which is within the law in Israel. He was disoriented, didn’t know how long he had been in prison or where he was. He had not been allowed any change of clothing during the entire time, and, indeed to date has been allowed to receive through his lawyer only two pair of underpants and two pair of socks. Mr. Kuttab warned Hashem about the likelihood that he would be put in a cell with other Palestinian detainees and that they would likely be informers. There was still no “charge sheet.” Indeed he was then put in a cell with a number of other Palestinian “detainees,” and thereafter was accused of specific crimes which were reported to the interrogators by the other Palestinians in the cell.
ACTIONS TAKEN BY US CONSUL: The responsibility of the US Consul, we are told by Todd Haskell, is to attempt to assure that the US citizen is accorded the right to a fair hearing and reasonable conditions of incarceration. He made a report to the Department of State that Hashem Mufleh “alleged mistreatment” by Israeli authorities. A “strong note” was reportedly sent to the Israeli government. In fact, the wording of such a note is couched in terms of a ‘”request for investigation of the alleged mistreatment.” The Consul tries to visit about once a month, but has a caseload of 25 American citizens currently imprisoned by Israel (and there are other consular officers with caseloads as well). Mr. Haskell hopes to visit Mufleh again about the middle of October.
ACTIONS TAKEN BY THE ATTORNEY: Mr. Kuttab has assigned two attorneys on his staff to follow the case under his supervision. Obtaining permission to visit Mr. Mufleh is exceedingly difficult. Mr. Kuttab, for example, obtained an appointment to see his client on September 22. He called on September 21 to reconfirm the appointment and was told by prison officials that he could not see Mufleh because they didn’t know where he was.
This was alarming, because it is not uncommon for prisoners to be moved around to obstruct efforts by family and counsel to visit. Within an hour he had a call from Mufleh’s sister, Alia, with the news that Mufleh was, at that moment, in a military courtroom in a settlement on the West Bank and wanted to know why Kuttab was not there. Kuttab attempted to get to the court but was rebuffed, saying that Mufleh had asked to be “charged” without waiting for his attorney.
The Israelis told the US Consul that they didn’t know that Mufleh had an attorney — then admitted that they did know (it was a matter of record that Kuttab had visited Mufleh in prison), but didn’t have his phone number — and when that was clearly disproved with their own documents, they just said it was a “mistake.” The Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Zalmon Shoval, states that the attorney refused a “review” which is the opposite of the truth. Jonathan Kuttab has been trying to obtain a review of the court procedure and issuance of a “charge sheet” since it was clearly contrary to law to deprive Mufleh of an attorney.
THE “CHARGE SHEET”: The “charge sheet” contains seven charges and at the end of the document are listed the names of the Shin Bet interrogators and two Palestinian detainees with their prison ID numbers. One of them is a young friend of Hashem’s who has been held for eleven months.
After eleven days of torture and several weeks of miserable incarceration (during which Hashem went on a hunger strike for several days), without any change of clothes and threats of rape and sodomy, all the charge sheet lists are the following – briefly summarized – (full text available upon request):
Member of an illegal organization or acted as a member of Hamas where during his membership he studied religious studies….
Threw a stone in the direction of moving vehicles….
While throwing the stone he covered his face….
Distributed leaflets copied from the internet which appeared in a Jordanian newspaper in attempt to influence public opinion
Heard religious lessons
Published articles of a religious nature on behalf of the Islamic Bloc
At a memorial service for a “disappeared” wanted person he raised a sign containing “threats against the Israeli security forces” and spoke in praise of the wanted person.
Following issuance of the charge sheet Israeli officials say that Hashem asked to be “remanded” [held in custody} and was given a trial date of November 4. There is no indication in the charge sheet that Mufleh ever signed any confession.
EFFORTS ON MUFLEH’S BEHALF BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS: On September 10, Senator Jeff Bingaman telephoned the Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Zalman Shoval, inquiring about the current status of Hashem Mufleh’s incarceration and also sent a letter. On September 18, Ambassador Shoval wrote to Senator Bingaman asserting that Mufleh was arrested “for reportedly belonging to a hostile organization. He admitted that Mufleh’s attorney was not present at the “remanding” because he was not yet representing Mr. Mufleh. He also asserts that Mr. Kuttab refused the offer of a review of the remanding. However, Israeli documents refute this assertion.
In addition, Ambassador Shoval says that “several members of his family visited Mr. Mufleh. This is totally false. He further assures the Senator that “the authorities in Israel treat individual rights with utmost care. As you are probably aware, we are signatories to numerous international agreements to this extent.” After reading the Human Rights Report issued by the Department of State you may be the judge.
There has been no response from Senator Bingaman to date.
Eric Ness, a spokesman for Rep. Bill Redmond, contacted the American Embassy in Tel Aviv during the week of August 24 and was told, “No one foresees any problems getting him on bond and getting him the hell out of there.” That expectation has proved to be futile.
Efforts have been made to enlist the support of other Members of Congress to demand release of Mufleh without success.
PROGNOSIS: Knowledgeable US officials (without attribution) admit that Mufleh is likely to be sentenced to a lengthy period of incarceration. The only hope for Mufleh is that his situation becomes well-known so that official pressure may be brought on Israel for his release.
REPORT OF US GOVERNMENT ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN ISRAEL AND OCCUPED TERRITORIES: The US Department of State Report on Human Rights Practices for 1997 for the Occupied Territories states:
“…although the Israeli Penal Code prohibits the use of force or violence by a public official to obtain information, the GSS chief is permitted by law to allow interrogators to employ ‘special measures’ that exceed the use of ‘moderate physical and psychological pressure’ when it is deemed necessary to obtain information…Most convictions in security cases before Israeli courts are based on confessions. A detainee may not have contact with a lawyer until after interrogation, a process that may last days or weeks. The government does not allow ICRC (the Red Cross) representatives access to detainees until the 14th day of detention. This prolonged incommunicado detention contributes to the likelihood of abuse. Detainees sometimes claim in court that their confessions are coerced, but judges rarely exclude such confessions. It is likely that some Palestinian detainees fail to make complaints either from fear of retribution or because they assume that such complaints would be ignored. Of the 35 complaints filed during the year, there were no known cases in which a confession was disqualified because of improper means of investigation or interrogation.”
“Common interrogation practices include hooding; forced standing or squatting for long periods of time; prolonged exposure to extreme temperatures; tying or chaining the detainee in contorted and painful positions; blows and beating with fists, sticks and other instruments; confinement in small and often filthy spaces; sleep and food deprivation; and threats against the detainee’s life or family. Israeli interrogators continued to subject prisoners to violent ‘shaking,’ which in at least one past case resulted in death.”
