Palestinian Authority must pay $3.61 million in torture case
Israel recently collected several million dollars from Palestinian Authority funds to compensate Arab-Israelis wrongly arrested two decades ago.
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Payment has come due in a two-year-old court case, and the Palestinian Authority (PA) now must forfeit 12.7 million shekels ($3.61 million) for arresting and torturing more than 50 Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship, an Israeli court ruled.
The victims were arrested between 1990 and the early 2000s on suspicion of collaborating with Israel. The arrests date back to the days of PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat.
The people — arrested on charges of communicating with Israel — filed the lawsuit in Jerusalem District Court in April 2017. The court said it accepted the case because the PA had violated the Taba agreement signed between the PLO and Israel in Washington in 1995. The agreement states that Palestinians who have maintained contact with Israeli authorities will not be subjected to acts of harassment, violence, retribution or prosecution.
In July 2017, the court ruled the PA did not have the authority to arrest the individuals, and their detention caused them grave physical and psychological harm because they were tortured in Palestinian prisons.
