The Jerusalem Magistrates Court held a hearing today regarding the extension of the custody of Yitzchak Pass and Mati Shvo. The two Hevron residents are being held on charges related to "security-related" crimes.
Neither Pass nor Shvo have been allowed to meet with a lawyer since their arrest on Thursday night. Two busloads of demonstrators arrived at the Russian Compound courthouse this morning to protest the harsh conditions under which the two are being held and to demand their release.
Justice Noam Solberg ruled that the two should be held for another six days, and may not meet with their lawyers until Saturday night. Atty. Naftali Wurtzberger appealed the latter decision in the Jerusalem District Court this afternoon. One of the two detainees, Yitzik Pass, has been on a hunger-strike for a number of days. When asked how this fact is known, given the fact that Pass is permitted no contact with the outside world, David Wilder of Hevron explained that a guard assigned to bring food to Pass brought back word of the strike, and that today, "Justice Solberg implied as much in his remarks."
Wilder further reports that the police made special efforts to prevent Pass and Shvo from knowing anything about the protest on their behalf. "When they brought Yitzik out from the courtroom to the police van in the parking lot," Wilder said, "they tried to hold up a black sheet so that he wouldn't see all the people waiting outside - but then some in the group began to charge the parking lot, and so police realized that this wouldn't work, so they dropped the sheet. Yitzik saw us, smiled, and lifted up his handcuffed hands..." When Shvo was taken to the van, Wilder continued, the police didn't even try to put up the sheet.
Supreme Court Justice Dalia Dorner ruled earlier this week that the ban on meeting with lawyers is justified because the investigation is "not limited to events of the past." To explain: An arrestee may not be denied a meeting with a lawyer on charges having to do with crimes that were already committed - but he may be denied this privilege on matters related to preventing a crime in the future. Dorner ruled that the current investigation is related to both the past and the future, and she therefore justified the ban on counsel. An expert in such cases told Arutz-7's Yosef Zalmanson today that such an interpretation of the law is not groundless - but could leave room for an appeal in the future if a conviction is reached based on a confession extracted in this manner.
Yitzchak Pass' 10-month-old daughter, Shalhevet, was murdered in April 2001 by a Palestinian terrorist standing in the Abu Sneineh hills overlooking the Jewish neighborhood of Avraham Avinu in Hevron. The demonstrators condemned the arrest and incarceration of a bereaved father while Palestinian terrorists are being released from prison.