by Our Foreign Desk

ISRAELI human rights group B’Tselem accused the authorities yesterday of using the detention of Palestinian defendants before verdicts are delivered in military courts to effectively turn legal proceedings into a “hollow formality.”

The group said that remanding Palestinians in custody was “the rule rather than the exception.”

The knowledge that they will be held in jail until the conclusion of lengthy legal proceedings leads most defendants to enter plea bargains because waiting for a trial that could theoretically establish their innocence would entail spending a longer time behind bars.

Full statistics are not made public, but B’Tselem based its report on 260 case files in military courts operating on the occupied West Bank, gathering an unprecedented amount of data from both independent and Israel Defence Force (IDF) sources on the topic.

The group quoted senior military judge Ronen Atzmon as writing: “Always remember that the primary rule is that suspects or defendants are entitled to their freedom, and one should not arrest them. Detention is the exception rather than the rule.”

However, common practice by judges in military courts has, according to B’Tselem, turned this principle on its head.

The overwhelming rule now, says the report, is for Palestinians to be detained until the end of their trial — the opposite of what Lieutenant-Colonel Atzmon said should be happening.

The only exception to this rule is that Palestinians charged with traffic offences are usually released pending trial instead of being detained.

Thousands of Palestinians appear before military courts every year on charges ranging from stone-throwing to membership of outlawed groups, violence and weapons offences.

The impact of the extremely high percentage of pre-verdict detentions is to convince most Palestinians to plead guilty.

According to the report, in the 2008-13 period the number of Palestinians in pre-verdict detention for up to a year was between 606 and 1,378, with the 2013 figure rising again into the 1,300 range and over 151 suspects held for up to two years.

The IDF admits that demands to refuse bail to Palestinian defendants are agreed by judges in 90 per cent of cases.

Nonetheless, it accused B’Tselem of using “selected examples in a biased manner which distorts the reality of the situation.”