Gallant puts Palestinian citizen into administrative detention after court frees him

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant issued a five-month administrative detention order on Wednesday against Basil Dahesh Akri from Arrabat Al-Battouf in the Galilee region of the occupation state even after a court had decided to release him. Gallant exercised his authority to issue the order under Section 2 of the Emergency Powers (Detention) Law of 1979.

“Where the Minister of Defence has reasonable cause to believe that reasons of state security or public security require that a particular person be detained, he may, by order under his hand, direct that such person be detained for a period,” says the law. Akri will now be held in administrative detention until 11 February next year in the Ktzi’ot, Megiddo, Nafha or Gilboa prisons.

“The security services do not have any charges against my son Basil, and the investigation was stalled to detain him for as long as possible,” Dahesh Akri told Arab48 correspondent Omar Dalasha. “Today we were surprised by the issue of an administrative detention order against him, and this proves categorically that the entire case is political and nothing more. We will continue to follow up on this case, including a petition against the administrative detention order.”

According to lawyer Khaled Muhajna, who is defending Basil Akri, “Unfortunately, there is a method followed with detainees in the occupied territories that involves administrative detention in the event that the intelligence services fail to submit indictments against activists. What happened with Basil is that the court issued a release order and set the conditions and bail, and set the time of his release at noon, and only then was the administrative detention method followed.”

He pointed out that the defence team in such cases goes to trial without any materials or details of evidence because they are classified, and defence lawyers are not allowed to see them. “Anything we know is through our following of the case and meeting the clients. The intelligence services did not manage to pin any charges on Basil despite holding him for a month, and there are other detainees on the same suspicions, which are being referred to as ‘security’ suspicions.”

The administrative detention order against Akri is nothing but revenge against him and his family. “They are a nationalist family and are involved in the issues of their people, and that is why this administrative detention order was issued.”

Muhajna ended by explaining that a session will be held on Thursday at the Central Court in Haifa to approve the administrative detention order. “Either the court approves it or rejects it, and of course we will argue on his behalf without being allowed to see any material on the grounds that it is classified. We are only told that it poses a security threat to the security of Israel.”

Balad: Israel’s use of administrative detention is ‘vindictive’