The child Ahmad Manasra…continuously suffering since 7 months ago
The District Court convicted on Tuesday 14-year old Ahmad Saleh Manasra with “two counts of attempted murder and possession of a knife” in reference to carrying out a stabbing attack last October in the settlement of Pisgat Zi’ev.
Lawyer Tarek Barghouth from the Ministry of Prisoners explained that the District Court decided to convict the child Manasra with two counts of attempted murder and possession of a knife in the settlement of Pisgat Zi’ev north of Jerusalem when he carried out a stabbing attack along with his 15-year old cousin Martyr Hasan Khaled Manasra which led to the injury of two settlers.
Barghouth added that there are contradictions in the conviction of Ahmad Manasra which did not rely on the facts.
Barghouth also added that the court scheduled a session on 11/7/2016 for the sentencing of Manasra.
Ahmad Manasra
On October 12th, 2015 Ahmad and his cousin Hasan went to the settlement of Pisgat Zi’ev near their homes in Beit Hanina after they had left school; Ahmad was in 8th grade.
He was arrested while bleeding in the streets of the settlement after being critically injured as he was run-over and assaulted by settlers. He was also verbally assaulted while lying on the ground and was not provided with any kind of treatment despite his urgent need for it. After several days in Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital, he was transferred to an internal institution in “Yarka” in the city of Akko. These institutions are similar to prisons and children arrested for security cases are detained and treated differently from the rest of the detainees. Visits are limited to certain people and the children are not allowed to leave the institution even during holidays. Last month, the duration of detaining Manasra in this institution was extended for three more months.
Last November, a video was leaked from the interrogation room where Manasra was being interrogated. The video showed that extent of psychological pressure and intimidation Manasra was subject to during the interrogation in order to extract confessions. The interrogator was yelling and insulting the divine self in order to provoke Manasra. During the interrogation, they showed him videos of him and his cousin Hasan and the interrogation was focused on him confessing to carrying out a stabbing attack against settlers. Ahmad cried a lot during the interrogations and insisted on not remembering anything about the incident; the interrogators continued questioning him for several hours despite crying.
The video showed three officers interrogating the child Ahmad Manasra on charges of attempting to carry out a stabbing attack with his cousin Hasan who was shot by the Israeli soldiers and passed away immediately.
