The hearing on the appeal of Amiram Ben-Uliel, who was convicted in the "Duma arson case" and claims that his Shabak interrogators extracted a false confession from him through torture, was set by the Supreme Court for March 7.
At the same time, the court announced that Justice Neal Hendel, who is considered critical of the collection of confessions collected by improper means, was removed from the panel and will be replaced by Judge Yitzhak Amit. Therefore, the panel of judges who will hear the appeal will include Justices Yitzhak Amit, David Mintz and Yosef Elron.
The decision to change the composition of the judges was criticized by people close to Ben-Uliel. Orian Ben-Uliel, Amiram's wife, said that "it is not for nothing that the prosecutor's office repeatedly asked to postpone the hearing on various pretexts. From the beginning, all efforts of the system were directed to convict Amiram at all costs, through the interrogation using severe torture and up to his conviction on the basis of the confession he was forced to give under those tortures."
"Now, the prosecutor waited for another judge to take Justice Hendel's place, because every lawyer knows his position on confessions collected in improper ways. This is another stage in the system's war against justice with the intention of making sure Amiram stays in jail. Torture is the wrong way to extract a confession, and we will continue to fight to prove his innocence."
Ben-Uliel's associates also released a new video which reveals what they claimed was behind the conviction. The video deals with legal 'holes' in the Duma case and the indictment and raises doubts about how the police reconstruction of the crime was carried out. In addition, rare recordings of Amiram were played, describing the severe torture he went through. In the recordings, Ben-Uliel said that under such torture ,"anyone would admit to anything."