Israel’s Shin Bet security agency uses relatives of terror suspects to induce confessions, an Israeli group charged.
The Public Committee Against Torture presented its findings Sunday in an 86-page report to the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee.
The group said the Shin Bet exploits family members of Palestinian detainees by making unjustified arrests of suspects’ family members, or makes the suspects believe it has family members in custody, in order to apply illegal psychological pressure to force them to confess.
The report “Family Matters, Using Family Members to Pressure Detainees Under GSS Interrogation,” written by attorney Aviel Liner, details a sampling of cases involving the exploitation of family members.
The report claims that torture in the State of Israel – physical and psychological – continues even after a High Court of Justice ruling in 1999 forbidding the practice.
The Shin Bet denied the charges.
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