NEWARK - The Israeli military courts that held Imam
Momammad Qatanani of Paterson, who faces deportation by the
U.S., were part of a system characterized by wholesale
arrests of Palestinians, inhumane treatment and restricted
access to lawyers and visitors, an expert on those courts
testified Monday.
Lisa Hajja, author of "The Israeli Military System in the
West Bank and Gaza," told an Immigration Court that
Palestinian males were routinely detained by Israeli
officials for interrogation aimed at gathering intelligence
about groups and their activities.
Hajja said it was not unusual for the Israelis to detain
people for 90 or so days, then release them. She said they
were unlikely to release people they suspected of being
involved with groups like Hamas, a militant organization
that the U.S. has branded as terrorist.
"At least one out of every three Palestinian men was
arrested at least once," she said, adding that Palestinians
viewed it as "one of the liabilities of living under Israeli
military occupation."
"I mean, children who threw stones could be held for 90
days," said Hajja, who is the chair of the Law and Society
Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
In calling Hajja, Qatanani’s defense aimed to discredit a
1993 detention of the imam on the West Bank by Israelis,
which plays a crucial role in the U.S. government’s
deportation effort against him.
Qatanani, who came to the U.S. on a religious visa in
1996 to serve at the Islamic Center of Passaic County in
Paterson, applied for U.S. permanent residency in 1999. An
immigration agent testified on Friday that in a 2005
interview with Qatanani, the imam disclosed he had been
arrested by Israelis when he visited the West Bank in 1993.
Immigration officials have denied Qatanani’s permanent
residency request, contending that he lied when he failed to
say on his application that he’d been arrested or convicted.
Qatanani and his attorney have argued that though he was
detained by Israelis for three months, he never was told
that he was officially arrested, charged or convicted.
Immigration officials say that the Israelis have a signed
confession by the imam in which he admitted to being a
member of Hamas, the militant group branded as terrorist
group by the United States. However, they have repeatedly
failed to produce it.
Qatanani says he was tortured during his detention, and
was coerced into signing a document in Hebrew " a language
he does not understand.
The defense today is relying on experts on the Israeli
military courts " particularly as it operated in 1993 " to
describe a system that rigged cases against Palestinians and
used torture to coerce confessions from the innocent. Hajja
also described the military court system as one that tried
to "break" detained individuals by depriving them of sleep
and pushing them to confess in order to end the misery.
Judge Alberto Riefkohl questioned why, even in a system
deemed unfair by Palestinians, Qatanani would not indicate
on his green card application that he had been detained for
90 days. He said being detained for 90 days would be a
pivotal experience for most people, especially people who
had not been jailed before.
Hajja said that while upsetting, detention was considered
by Palestinians routine treatment by Israelis and not a
legitimate process worth reporting.
Qatanani, 44, is expected to take the stand next May 19.
Facing deportation, along with the imam, are his wife and
three of six children. While the couple’s other three
children were born in the United States, they are expected
to leave with the family if the imam is deported.
E-mail: llorente@northjersey.com
