Updates on US Citizens Arrested, Tortured in Israel
08 December 1998
Updates on US Citizens Arrested, Tortured in Israel
ANWAR MOHAMAD, US CITIZEN, ARRESTED AND TORTURED IN ISRAEL, RELEASED DECEMBER 7…TRIAL OF HASHEM MUFLEH, ARRESTED AND TORTURED BY ISRAEL, RE-SCHEDULED FOR DECEMBER 9
Anwar Mohamad, a 25-year-old American citizen from Miami Beach, Florida was arrested on October 28 by Israeli authorities as he was attempting to go to Amman, Jordan to visit his sister. He had been visiting for one week his brother who lives in a village near Ramallah.
He reports that he was subjected to severe torture over the entire period of forty days. This included hooding, being tied to a chair in a contorted position and shackled for three solid days. When he could no longer feel his hands he screamed and when they finally removed the handcuffs he found that his hands were severely swollen.
He was then placed in a 6-foot-square metal box which was moved about and pounded on periodically. He was deprived of food to the point of starvation. He was beaten. He was threatened with execution and a plastic bag was tied over his head.
After forty days he confessed to giving money monthly to support a Palestinian orphan and to throwing stones without causing injury in 1987. The Israeli interrogators finally released him from “the coffin” and told him he was free to go.
Anwar is the manager of a pizza store in Miami and he is willing to be interviewed. He has been told that he can’t leave Israel until he obtains a Palestinian passport even though he entered Israel on his American passport. Partners for Peace has requested an American escort to the airport to assure that he is not prevented from leaving.
Hashem Mufleh, 18-year-old third generation American citizen arrested by the Israelis on August 18 was tortured for ten days and has been subjected to prolonged imprisonment without trial. The trial scheduled for November 18 was aborted when the judge walked into the courtroom and found it filled with journalists and cameras. The trial is now scheduled for December 9.
The cases of three other Americans currently jailed on “security/political” grounds are being investigated currently by Partners for Peace.
Bishara Saidi from a suburb of Detroit was arrested while having Christmas dinner with his wife’s relatives in the Galilee and accused of having contact with a foreign agent (having visited his family in Lebanon before going to Israel). He was advised by lawyers to accept a three-year-term rather than fight it and probably be sentenced to six, even though he denies all charges. He is currently in jail and has been denied both a Bible and his medicine. His has not seen his baby born after his incarceration. His wife is back in Detroit.
Another detainee is from Milwaukee, Wisconsin and his family fears for his health. He is about fifty years old, married and has seven children. He has been held for several weeks.
A fifth case is from Louisiana but details are not yet available.
It is very difficult to obtain detailed information on these cases. The Israeli government frequently fails to notify American Consular authorities in a timely way when they detain an American citizen of Palestinian descent. The family usually has to seek the assistance of human rights groups to find a missing relative.
The American authorities routinely visit an imprisoned American citizen, and I have been assured that they now recommend to the prisoner that they sign a waiver of their privacy rights in order to facilitate dissemination of information about their plight. Unless they have signed such a waiver the American Consular officials refuse to give any confirmation of arrest or details about the case.
