Israel’s early release of 300 security prisoners from the Ketziot detention center is part of a broader policy of reducing the prison population in the Gaza Strip, where most of the inmates come from, Israeli officials say.
Impending releases and the freeing of 30 prisoners last weekend represent a goodwill gesture by the Israeli authorities in honor of Ramadan, the Moslem holy month beginning this week.
Overall, the number of prisoners at Ketziot, located in the Negev, has dropped from 7,000 to 5,000 recently, in keeping with the policies of the Israel Defense Force commander in the southern region, Maj. Gen. Matan Vilnai.
“The objective is to reduce by as much as possible the number of prisoners who have two months left to complete their sentences,” Lt. Col. Ze’ev Shaltiel, the warden of Ketziot, explained at a news conference in Beersheba.
He said that apart from the Ramadan amnesty, the policy now is to release youthful prisoners and the chronically ill who have no more than two months left to serve.
Shaltiel said the early release parallel an improvement of the criminal justice system in the Gaza Strip, which has shortened the time consumed by legal proceedings.
“Today, there are only about 600 prisoners in Ketziot awaiting trial, compared to about 1,500 just recently,” Shaltiel said.
He also said the authorities are limiting the use of administrative detention, a relic of the British Mandate in Palestine retained by Israel.
“The number of administrative detainees in the prison has dropped from 3,000 in the not too distant past to 250 today,” the warden said.
Administrative detention is in effect a suspension of habeas corpus. Detainees may be imprisoned for up to six months by order of the military authorities without charge or trial.
Shaltiel stressed that although Ketziot is in Israel proper, its inmates are an extension of the Gaza Strip and its feuding political factions.
He said that since Ketziot was established in March 1988, 28 prisoners have been murdered, most of them by strangulation. The latest such murder occurred on July 19, 1991.
Although murder is endemic to prison life the world over, the warden implied that those in Ketziot were all politically motivated.
None of the victims had collaborated with the authorities despite the suspicions of their prison mates, he said.
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