A West Bank Arab arrested a week ago for alleged incitement, complained to the Supreme Court today that he was tortured while undergoing interrogation by his Israeli jailers and asked the court to order his transfer to a different prison.
The complainant, Walid Mahmoud Al Arda,is the son of the Mayor of Arrabe, a village in the northern region of the West Bank. It was at Arrabe last month that a mysterious illness broke out among local highschool girls, provoking charges by local Arabs of mass poisoning by Israelis. The illness, which spread to other towns and villages in the territory, was investigated by international teams of experts at the behest of the Israel Health Ministry. No evidence of poisoning was found.
Al Arda was accused of trying to generate public panic by reviving the poison scare. He denied the charge but claimed in his petition to the Supreme Court that one of his interrogators beat him and tortured him with electric shock. Al Arda’s attorney quoted a military court judge who, in reviewing an earlier appeal, noted that the suspect’s body bore signs of beating which should be investigated.
SUSPECT IN GRUNZWEIG MURDER RELEASED
In an unrelated development, police today released a suspect arrested last weekend in connection with the grenade murder of Peace Now activist Emil Grunzweig last February. The suspect, who was not identified by name, had been remanded in custody for 15 days on the basis of police testimony presented to a Jerusalem magistrate in closed session Monday. The man was described as in his twenties, the father of two, from the Orthodox township of Kiryat Arba, adjacent to Hebron. The police gave no details of his release.
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