Lebanese prisoners as bargaining chips

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Lebanese prisoners as bargaining chips or bargaining chips case refers to the case of 21 Lebanese citizens who were kidnapped from Lebanon between 1986 and 1994 and held hostage in Israel for a period of ten to fourteen years in order to later exchange prisoners in Lebanon to serve as a "bargaining chip" for captured or killed Israeli soldiers. Her case was the subject of two rulings by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1997 and 2000 that resulted in a 2002 change in the law by the Knesset .

History of imprisonment

The best-known of these prisoners were Sheikh Abdel Karim Obeid, spiritual leader of Hezbollah , who was abducted in 1989 , and Mustafa Dirani, former security chief of the Amal movement , who was kidnapped in 1994 when he was leading a faction allied with Hezbollah. Both were inmates of the secret prison facility 1391 and, after their deportation to Israel, first appeared in public in May 2000 on the occasion of a court case. The Israeli authorities had stated that they were being held in exchange for the air force soldier Ron Arad , who had been missing in Lebanon since 1986 . The other prisoners were housed in a special section of the Ajalon prison in Ramla . They were between 15 and 22 years old when they were abducted. Ten of them were charged with membership in a hostile organization and sentenced to between one and a half and four years in prison. After serving their sentences, however, they were not released and remained in administrative detention. The Israeli authorities did not accuse nine of them of any crime, but kept the fact of their detention in Israel secret for years and did not allow visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Before being abducted to Israel, several of the Lebanese had first passed through the notorious Chiyam prison camp in the Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon and suffered severe abuse there. For the first ten years of their imprisonment, Muslim prisoners were not given meat because Israel refused to allow ritual slaughter .

An individual case also reported in international media was that of Ghassan Dirani: He was taken prisoner in Lebanon in 1986, apparently solely due to the fact that the then 21-year-old bank clerk was Mustafa Dirani's nephew. After the Christian militia Forces Libanaises under Samir Geagea kidnapped him along with five other young men, he first spent three years in the hands of the militia before the Israeli forces abducted him to Israel in 1990, where he remained detained without charge - the first Two years in complete secrecy: The Israeli authorities denied inquiries from family members whether Dirani and the other five missing persons had been transferred to Israel. An ICRC representative accidentally noticed an unlisted inmate Dirani at the Ramla prison hospital. After the international human rights organization Amnesty International explicitly requested information about Dirani and his five fellow prisoners from 1991, the press office of the Israeli Armed Forces finally confirmed in February 1992 that they were in Israel. In 1997, during a prison trial , Israeli prison doctors recommended Dirani's release because he was permanently physically and mentally ill as a result of the conditions of detention and interrogation. Amnesty International had pointed out his alarming state of health since 1994 at the latest. The relevant district judge's release decision was overruled by the Supreme Court. When another judge later ordered his release again, the Supreme Court did not object, allowing Dirani to return to his family in Lebanon in April 2000 after fourteen years of imprisonment. Israel's Deputy Defense Minister Efraim Sneh criticized the release on the grounds that it was giving Israel one of the few bargaining chips in the effort to repatriate Arad.

After ten of the prisoners had sued in 1994 against the renewed judicial extension of their administrative detention, the Israeli Supreme Court upheld the admissibility of the continued detention of the Lebanese for the purpose of exchanging them for detained Israeli soldiers in a first trial in 1997 with two to one judges' votes. The verdict on the conclusion of the secret proceedings - as is customary in administrative detention cases - was published in March 1998 as a result of an error, which was the first reason the Lebanese case became known. Amnesty International protested against the ruling legitimizing the state hostage-taking and responded by calling for the immediate release of all Lebanese hostages in Israel. In December 1999 five of the hostages were released on the instructions of Prime Minister Ehud Barak and flown to Beirut via Frankfurt. Only a few days earlier the Ministry of Defense had officially confirmed that Israel was holding 21 Lebanese as bargaining chips for the intended exchange against captured Israeli military personnel, thereby lifting the ban on the publication of this matter, which had previously been in force in Israel.

From 1999, the Supreme Court dealt with the case again in an expanded college of judges and came to a judgment in April 2000 with six votes against three judges, which overturned the 1997 decision. Chaired by Court President Aharon Barak , who said he had changed his mind since 1997, the court found that the continued detention of the remaining hostages was unlawful as they did not pose an imminent threat to the security of the state. A few days after the announcement of the verdict, which aroused fierce opposition from the Israeli public, the Security Cabinet under Prime Minister and Defense Minister Barak initiated a law to legalize hostage-taking of "illegal fighters" for use in prisoner exchange, which was finally adopted by the Knesset in 2002 . In April 2000, 13 of the held hostages were released in Lebanon. The administrative detention of the remaining inmates Obeid and Dirani in the facility 1391 was again judicially extended to the end of the year in July 2001 after the authorities argued that their release would jeopardize state security. The Supreme Court ruled in August 2001 that the two should be given the right to visit the ICRC, but the court itself ordered the implementation of its order to be postponed following protests by relatives of missing soldiers. With Obeid and Dirani, the last of the 21 Lebanese hostages were only released in 2004 as part of a prisoner exchange when, through Germany's mediation, 400 Palestinians, 34 predominantly Lebanese Arabs and the German Steven Smyrek, who was condemned as a Hezbollah terrorist, as well as the bodies of 59 Lebanese fighters against the Israeli one Colonel of the Reserve Elhanan Tannenbaum and the bodies of three soldiers were exchanged.

reception

Over the years human rights organizations have repeatedly denounced abductions and detentions as illegal and immoral. They made a distinction between Obeid and Dirani on the one hand and the other hostages on the other, most of whom had first heard of in an Israeli prison in Arad. The fact that Hezbollah never expressed interest in them and did not demand their release - not even in exchange for an exchange of prisoners - shows the pointlessness of their imprisonment. This “negotiating pool” could not solve the question of Ron Arad's missing and will not do so in the future either, but instead brings 19 additional people into a comparable situation. This view was confirmed in 1999 by Ami Ajalon , head of the Shin Bet , and Eljakim Rubinstein , member of the Israeli Supreme Court.

literature

  • Eitan Barak: Under cover of darkness: The Israeli supreme court and the use of human lives as 'Bargaining Chips'. In: The International Journal of Human Rights Vol. 3, No. 3 (1999), pp. 1–43 (English)
  • Orna Ben-Naftali, Sean S. Gleichgevitch: Missing in Legal Action: Lebanese Hostages in Israel. In: Harvard International Law Journal Vol. 41, No. 1 (Winter 2000), pp. 185-252 (English)
  • Elad Gil: A Reexamination of Administrative Detention in a Jewish and Democratic State. ( PDF version available online ) The Israel Democracy Institute, Jerusalem, August 2011 (English)
  • Max Putzer: Courts, Terror and Proceedings: A comparative study to guarantee basic judicial rights based on constitutional and supreme court jurisprudence in Germany and Israel. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2015, (in particular section ordering administrative detention on Israeli territory: the so-called 'bargaining chips' cases. Pp. 234–245)
  • Emanuel Gross: Human rights, terrorism and the problem of administrative detention in Israel: Does a democracy have the right to hold terrorists as bargaining chips? ( PDF version available online ) In: Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law Vol. 18, No. 3 (2001), pp. 721–791 (English)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Florian Prill: Preventive detention to fight terrorism. European and International Law Volume 72, Herbert Utz Verlag, Munich 2010, p. 94; Max Putzer: Courts, Terror and Proceedings: A comparative study to guarantee basic judicial rights based on constitutional and supreme court jurisprudence in Germany and Israel. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2015, (section Arranging administrative detention on Israeli territory: the so-called 'bargaining chips' cases. Pp. 234–245)
  2. ↑ Mark Lavie: Lebanese Guerrillas Appear in Court. In: AP News of May 29, 2000, accessed October 9, 2018 (English)
  3. ^ Eyal Gross: Helping to Correct the World. In: Haaretz from September 9, 2001, accessed on October 9, 2018 (English)
  4. ↑ a b Julie Flint: Israel's torture jails exposed. In: The Guardian of February 20, 2000, accessed October 10, 2018.
  5. ^ Suzanne Goldenberg: Court releases Israel's Lebanese hostages. In: The Guardian of April 13, 2000, accessed October 10, 2018.
  6. ↑ a b c Deborah Sontag: Israel Frees One of 16 Lebanese It Held to Trade for Its Soldiers. In: New York Times of April 6, 2000, accessed October 10, 2018 (English)
  7. ^ News letter. In: Jewish Telegraphic Agency of June 30, 1998, accessed October 10, 2018 (English)
  8. ↑ Tel-Aviv a libéré Ghassan Dirani détenu sans jugement depuis 13 ans. In: L'Orient – ​​Le Jour of April 6, 2000, accessed on October 10, 2018 (French)
  9. ^ Tribunaux: Ghassan Dirani demande ... une couronne de lauriers. In: L'Orient – ​​Le Jour of April 28, 2000, accessed October 10, 2018 (French)
  10. ^ Amnesty International, Israel's Forgotten Hostages: Lebanese Detainees in Israel and Khiam Detention Center. (PDF) July 1997, pp. 8–11, accessed on October 10, 2018 (English)
  11. ^ Amnesty International USA: Human Rights & US Security Assistance. Washington DC 1994, p. 30 (English)
  12. ↑ Israel releases Lebanese prisoner. In: BBC News of April 5, 2000, accessed October 10, 2018 (English)
  13. ↑ Guy I. Seidman: Judicial Administrative Review in Times of Discontent: The Israeli Supreme Court and the Second Palestinian Intifada. In: Gideon Doron, Arye Naor, Assaf Meydani (eds.): Law and Government in Israel. Routledge, London and New York 2010, pp. 54–75, here: p. 60 (English)
  14. ^ Mordechai Kremnitzer: Administrative Detention - An Opportunity for Reevaluation. Epilogue to Elad Gil: A Reexamination of Administrative Detention in a Jewish and Democratic State. P. 263 (English)
  15. ↑ Amnesty International: Israel / Lebanon: Israeli Supreme Court endorses hostage-taking. (PDF), press release of March 6, 1998, accessed on October 9, 2018 (English)
  16. ↑ Berlin brokered the release of five Hezbollah fighters. In: Frankfurter Rundschau of December 28, 1999, p. 2
  17. ↑ Release of Lebanese hostages by Israel. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung of December 28, 1999
  18. ^ Moshe Reinfeld: Israel holding 21 Lebanese as chips. In: Haaretz of December 21, 1999 (English)
  19. ↑ A landmark court ruling in Israel. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung from April 14, 2000
  20. ^ Deborah Sontag: Israeli High Court Orders Release of 8 Lebanese Prisoners. In: New York Times of April 13, 2000, accessed October 8, 2018.
  21. ^ Phil Reeves: Israeli law will allow seizure of 'hostages'. In: The Independent of April 19, 2000, accessed October 9, 2018.
  22. ^ Suzie Navot: Emergency as a State of Mind - The Case of Israel. In: Pierre Auriel, Olivier Beaud, Carl Wellman (Eds.): The Rule of Crisis: Terrorism, Emergency Legislation and the Rule of Law. Springer, Cham 2018, pp. 185–212, here pp. 201f. (English)
  23. ↑ Suzanne Goldenberg: Lebanese detainees yet to smell freedom. In: The Guardian of May 30, 2000, accessed October 10, 2018.
  24. ^ Human Rights Watch: World Report 2002: Israel, the Occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Palestinian Authority Territories. Accessed October 9, 2018
  25. ^ Mid-East prisoners welcomed home. In: BBC News of January 29, 2004, accessed October 5, 2018.
  26. ^ Israel names prisoners ahead of release. In: The Guardian of January 27, 2004, accessed October 10, 2018.