ISRAELI POLICE ARREST BRITISH CITIZEN TO DENY HER ACCESS TO HUSBAND HELD BY ISS

Israeljustice.com

  JERUSALEM -- Israeli police arrested a British citizen to prevent her from seeing her husband, an American citizen and a former marine, held without legal counsel for over two weeks by the Israeli Security Services.  
    Police arrested R. T., a mother of four, en route from her home in the Jewish community in Shvut Rahel in northern Samaria to a hearing on Oct. 21 at the Petah Tikva Magistrate's court to appeal her husband's remand by the ISS.  
    Petah Tikva Magistrate Noga Arad rejected the appeal and Y. T. was taken back into the custody by the ISS, a unit under the jurisdiction of the prime minister's office, where he has been held incognito since Oct. 7.  
    Ms. T., who was separated from her children and her nursing baby, was held for four hours at the police station in Petah Tikva but refused to cooperate with the investigation against her husband.  
    "I'm not answering any questions until I meet with an attorney," T. said.  
    Y. T. has reportedly refused to cooperate with the courts saying that he will only deal with a Torah-observant court. His attorney, Adi Kedar appealed to the Supreme Court to release details of the charges to the defense but the appeal was rejected.  
    "I know nothing," Kedar said. "I go to court but everything is classified. Only the judges know."  
    A gag order was placed on the case against Y. T., but only after details were leaked to major Israeli news agencies, which included the daily Ma'ariv newspaper and the internet site Walla.co.il.  
    Earlier reports published in the Israeli media including the internet site B'Chadrei Charedim, said that Y. T. was suspected of setting the pipe bomb outside the home of an Israeli academic linked to the left-wing, Prof. Zeev Sternhell, in Sept. 2008 in which the professor was lightly wounded. They also said that he was suspected of involvement in the shooting spree in a Tel Aviv gay youth bar that left two dead and 10 injured in August.  
    "They have accused him [Y. T.] of every [unsolved] murder [in the State of Israel] from [Haim] Arlosorov [in June 1933] to the murder in the gay bar," Shmuel Meidad, head of the Honeinu Legal Aid Organization, said. "Neither Defense Attorney Adi Kedar nor any one else has met with him."  
    The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, an organization funded mostly by the United States and the European Union, is aware of the case but has not acted on behalf of Y. T.  
    "Until now we weren't approached by either the person or his attorney," ACRI spokesperson Nirit Moskowitz said. "Unfortunately, this [violation of the right to legal counsel] does happen, mostly to Palestinians."  
    Moskowitz said that the case of Y. T. and his wife is an absolute violation of civil and legal rights.  
    "This [denial of an attorney] is definitely prohibited," Moskowitz said. "This is against the law."