Palestinian children locked in solitary confinement in Israel

The Palestinian children – alone and bewildered – in Israel's Al Jalame jail


Special report: Israel's military justice system is accused of mistreating Palestinian children arrested for throwing stones


Harriet Sherwood in the West Bank
guardian.co.uk 
Sunday 22 January 2012


The room is barely wider than the thin, dirty mattress that covers the floor. Behind a low concrete wall is a squat toilet, the stench from which has no escape in the windowless room. The rough concrete walls deter idle leaning; the constant overhead light inhibits sleep. The delivery of food through a low slit in the door is the only way of marking time, dividing day from night.

This is Cell 36, deep within Al Jalame prison in northern Israel. It is one of a handful of cells where Palestinian children are locked in solitary confinement for days or even weeks. One 16-year-old claimed that he had been kept in Cell 36 for 65 days.

The only escape is to the interrogation room where children are shackled, by hands and feet, to a chair while being questioned, sometimes for hours.

Most are accused of throwing stones at soldiers or settlers; some, of flinging molotov cocktails; a few, of more serious offences such as links to militant organisations or using weapons. They are also pumped for information about the activities and sympathies of their classmates, relatives and neighbours.

At the beginning, nearly all deny the accusations. Most say they are threatened; some report physical violence. Verbal abuse – "You're a dog, a son of a whore" – is common. Many are exhausted from sleep deprivation. Day after day they are fettered to the chair, then returned to solitary confinement. In the end, many sign confessions that they later say were coerced.

These claims and descriptions come from affidavits given by minors to an international human rights organisation and from interviews conducted by the Guardian. Other cells in Al Jalame and Petah Tikva prisons are also used for solitary confinement, but Cell 36 is the one cited most often in these testimonies.

Between 500 and 700 Palestinian children are arrested by Israeli soldiers each year, mostly accused of throwing stones. Since 2008, Defence for Children International (DCI) has collected sworn testimonies from 426 minors detained in Israel's military justice system.

Their statements show a pattern of night-time arrests, hands bound with plastic ties, blindfolding, physical and verbal abuse, and threats. About 9% of all those giving affidavits say they were kept in solitary confinement, although there has been a marked increase to 22% in the past six months.
Few parents are told where their children have been taken. Minors are rarely questioned in the presence of a parent, and rarely see a lawyer before or during initial interrogation. Most are detained inside Israel, making family visits very difficult.

Human rights organisations say these patterns of treatment – which are corroborated by a separate study, No Minor Matter, conducted by an Israeli group, B'Tselem – violate the international convention on the rights of the child, which Israel has ratified, and the fourth Geneva convention.
Most children maintain they are innocent of the crimes of which they are accused, despite confessions and guilty pleas, said Gerard Horton of DCI. But, he added, guilt or innocence was not an issue with regard to their treatment.

"We're not saying offences aren't committed – we're saying children have legal rights. Regardless of what they're accused of, they should not be arrested in the middle of the night in terrifying raids, they should not be painfully tied up and blindfolded sometimes for hours on end, they should be informed of the right to silence and they should be entitled to have a parent present during questioning."

Mohammad Shabrawi from the West Bank town of Tulkarm was arrested last January, aged 16, at about 2.30am. "Four soldiers entered my bedroom and said you must come with us. They didn't say why, they didn't tell me or my parents anything," he told the Guardian.

Handcuffed with a plastic tie and blindfolded, he thinks he was first taken to an Israeli settlement, where he was made to kneel – still cuffed and blindfolded – for an hour on an asphalt road in the freezing dead of night. A second journey ended at about 8am at Al Jalame detention centre, also known as Kishon prison, amid fields close to the Nazareth to Haifa road.

After a routine medical check, Shabrawi was taken to Cell 36. He spent 17 days in solitary, apart from interrogations, there and in a similar cell, No 37, he said. "I was lonely, frightened all the time and I needed someone to talk with. I was choked from being alone. I was desperate to meet anyone, speak to anyone … I was so bored that when I was out [of the cell] and saw the police, they were talking in Hebrew and I don't speak Hebrew, but I was nodding as though I understood. I was desperate to speak."
During interrogation, he was shackled. "They cursed me and threatened to arrest my family if I didn't confess," he said. He first saw a lawyer 20 days after his arrest, he said, and was charged after 25 days. "They accused me of many things," he said, adding that none of them were true.

Eventually Shabrawi confessed to membership of a banned organisation and was sentenced to 45 days. Since his release, he said, he was "now afraid of the army, afraid of being arrested." His mother said he had become withdrawn.

Ezz ad-Deen Ali Qadi from Ramallah, who was 17 when he was arrested last January, described similar treatment during arrest and detention. He says he was held in solitary confinement at Al Jalame for 17 days in cells 36, 37 and 38.

"I would start repeating the interrogators' questions to myself, asking myself is it true what they are accusing me of," he told the Guardian. "You feel the pressure of the cell. Then you think about your family, and you feel you are going to lose your future. You are under huge stress."

His treatment during questioning depended on the mood of his interrogators, he said. "If he is in a good mood, sometimes he allows you to sit on a chair without handcuffs. Or he may force you to sit on a small chair with an iron hoop behind it. Then he attaches your hands to the ring, and your legs to the chair legs. Sometimes you stay like that for four hours. It is painful.

"Sometimes they make fun of you. They ask if you want water, and if you say yes they bring it, but then the interrogator drinks it."

Ali Qadi did not see his parents during the 51 days he was detained before trial, he said, and was only allowed to see a lawyer after 10 days. He was accused of throwing stones and planning military operations, and after confessing was sentenced to six months in prison.The Guardian has affidavits from five other juveniles who said they were detained in solitary confinement in Al Jalame and Petah Tikva. All confessed after interrogation.

"Solitary confinement breaks the spirit of a child," said Horton. "Children say that after a week or so of this treatment, they confess simply to get out of the cell."

The Israeli security agency (ISA) – also known as Shin Bet – told the Guardian: "No one questioned, including minors, is kept alone in a cell as a punitive measure or in order to obtain a confession."
The Israeli prison service did not respond to a specific question about solitary confinement, saying only "the incarceration of prisoners…is subject to legal examination".

Juvenile detainees also allege harsh interrogation methods. The Guardian interviewed the father of a minor serving a 23-month term for throwing rocks at vehicles. Ali Odwan, from Azzun, said his son Yahir, who was 14 when he was arrested, was given electric shocks by a Taser while under interrogation.

"I visited my son in jail. I saw marks from electric shocks on both his arms, they were visible from behind the glass. I asked him if it was from electric shocks, he just nodded. He was afraid someone was listening," Odwan said.

DCI has affidavits from three minors accused of throwing stones who claim they were given electric shocks under interrogation in 2010.

Another Azzun youngster, Sameer Saher, was 13 when he was arrested at 2am. "A soldier held me upside down and took me to a window and said: 'I want to throw you from the window.' They beat me on the legs, stomach, face," he said.

His interrogators accused him of stone-throwing and demanded the names of friends who had also thrown stones. He was released without charge about 17 hours after his arrest. Now, he said, he has difficulty sleeping for fear "they will come at night and arrest me".

In response to questions about alleged ill-treatment, including electric shocks, the ISA said: "The claims that Palestinian minors were subject to interrogation techniques that include beatings, prolonged periods in handcuffs, threats, kicks, verbal abuse, humiliation, isolation and prevention of sleep are utterly baseless … Investigators act in accordance with the law and unequivocal guidelines which forbid such actions."

The Guardian has also seen rare audiovisual recordings of the interrogations of two boys, aged 14 and 15, from the village of Nabi Saleh, the scene of weekly protests against nearby settlers. Both are visibly exhausted after being arrested in the middle of the night. Their interrogations, which begin at about 9.30am, last four and five hours.

Neither is told of their legal right to remain silent, and both are repeatedly asked leading questions, including whether named people have incited them to throw stones. At one point, as one boy rests his head on the table, the interrogator flicks at him, shouting: "Lift your head, you." During the other boy's interrogation, one questioner repeatedly slams a clenched fist into his own palm in a threatening gesture. The boy breaks down in tears, saying he was due to take an exam at school that morning. "They're going to fail me, I'm going to lose the year," he sobs.

In neither case was a lawyer present during their interrogation.

Israeli military law has been applied in the West Bank since Israel occupied the territory more than 44 years ago. Since then, more than 700,000 Palestinian men, women and children have been detained under military orders.

Under military order 1651, the age of criminal responsibility is 12 years, and children under the age of 14 face a maximum of six months in prison.

However, children aged 14 and 15 could, in theory, be sentenced up to 20 years for throwing an object at a moving vehicle with the intent to harm. In practice, most sentences range between two weeks and 10 months, according to DCI.

In September 2009, a special juvenile military court was established. It sits at Ofer, a military prison outside Jerusalem, twice a week. Minors are brought into court in leg shackles and handcuffs, wearing brown prison uniforms. The proceedings are in Hebrew with intermittent translation provided by Arabic-speaking soldiers.

The Israeli prison service told the Guardian that the use of restraints in public places was permitted in cases where "there is reasonable concern that the prisoner will escape, cause damage to property or body, or will damage evidence or try to dispose of evidence".

The Guardian witnessed a case this month in which two boys, aged 15 and 17, admitted entering Israel illegally, throwing molotov cocktails and stones, starting a fire which caused extensive damage, and vandalising property. The prosecution asked for a sentence to reflect the defendants' "nationalistic motives" and to act as a deterrent.

The older boy was sentenced to 33 months in jail; the younger one, 26 months. Both were sentenced to an additional 24 months suspended and were fined 10,000 shekels (£1,700). Failure to pay the fine would mean an additional 10 months in prison.

Several British parliamentary delegations have witnessed child hearings at Ofer over the past year. Alf Dubs reported back to the House of Lords last May, saying: "We saw a 14-year-old and a 15-year-old, one of them in tears, both looking absolutely bewildered … I do not believe this process of humiliation represents justice. I believe that the way in which these young people are treated is in itself an obstacle to the achievement by Israel of a peaceful relationship with the Palestinian people."

Lisa Nandy, MP for Wigan, who witnessed the trial of a shackled 14-year-old at Ofer last month, found the experience distressing. "In five minutes he had been found guilty of stone-throwing and was sentenced to nine months. It was shocking to see a child being put through this process. It's difficult to see how a [political] solution can be reached when young people are being treated in this manner. They end up with very little hope for their future and very angry about their treatment."

Horton said a guilty plea was "the quickest way to get out of the system". If the children say their confession was coerced, "that provides them with a legal defence – but because they're denied bail they will remain in detention longer than if they had simply pleaded guilty".

An expert opinion written by Graciela Carmon, a child psychiatrist and member of Physicians for Human Rights, in May 2011, said that children were particularly vulnerable to providing a false confession under coercion.

"Although some detainees understand that providing a confession, despite their innocence, will have negative repercussions in the future, they nevertheless confess as the immediate mental and/or physical anguish they feel overrides the future implications, whatever they may be."

Nearly all the cases documented by DCI ended in a guilty plea and about three-quarters of the convicted minors were transferred to prisons inside Israel. This contravenes article 76 of the fourth Geneva convention, which requires children and adults in occupied territories to be detained within the territory.

The Israeli defence forces (IDF), responsible for arrests in the West Bank and the military judicial system said last month that the military judicial system was "underpinned by a commitment to ensure the rights of the accused, judicial impartiality and an emphasis on practising international legal norms in incredibly dangerous and complex situations".

The ISA said its employees acted in accordance with the law, and detainees were given the full rights for which they were eligible, including the right to legal counsel and visits by the Red Cross. "The ISA categorically denies all claims with regard to the interrogation of minors. In fact, the complete opposite is true – the ISA guidelines grant minors special protections needed because of their age."

Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, told the Guardian: "If detainees believe they have been mistreated, especially in the case of minors … it's very important that these people, or people representing them, come forward and raise these issues. The test of a democracy is how you treat people incarcerated, people in jail, and especially so with minors."
Stone-throwing, he added, was a dangerous activity that had resulted in the deaths of an Israeli father and his infant son last year.

"Rock-throwing, throwing molotov cocktails and other forms of violence is unacceptable, and the security authorities have to bring it to an end when it happens."

Human rights groups are concerned about the long-term impact of detention on Palestinian minors. Some children initially exhibit a degree of bravado, believing it to be a rite of passage, said Horton. "But when you sit with them for an hour or so, under this veneer of bravado are children who are fairly traumatised." Many of them, he said, never want to see another soldier or go near a checkpoint. Does he think the system works as a deterrent? "Yes, I think it does."

According to Nader Abu Amsha, the director of the YMCA in Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem, which runs a rehabilitation programme for juveniles, "families think that when the child is released, it's the end of the problem. We tell them this is the beginning".

Following detention many children exhibit symptoms of trauma: nightmares, mistrust of others, fear of the future, feelings of helplessness and worthlessness, obsessive compulsive behaviour, bedwetting, aggression, withdrawal and lack of motivation.

The Israeli authorities should consider the long-term effects, said Abu Amsha. "They don't give attention to how this might continue the vicious cycle of violence, of how this might increase hatred. These children come out of this process with a lot of anger. Some of them feel the need for revenge.
"You see children who are totally broken. It's painful to see the pain of these children, to see how much they are squeezed by the Israeli system."




Cell 36 in Al Jalame prison, northern Israel, is one of a handful of cells where Palestinian children are locked in solitary confinement for days or even weeks. Mohammad Shabrawi from Tulkarm, in the West Bank, was arrested last January, aged 16, and Ezz ad-Deen Ali Qadi from Ramallah, who was 17 when arrested, talk about their experiences


Archive footage courtesy of B'Tselem
Harriet Sherwood, Mat Heywood and Mustafa Khalili
guardian.co.uk,
Monday 23 January 2012




UK raises concerns over Israel's treatment of Palestinian children


Foreign Office minister says he has raised concerns about treatment of Palestinian children in Israeli detention


Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
guardian.co.uk, Monday 23 January 2012

Israeli soldiers hold Palestinian children under arrest in the West Bank city of Hebron in August 2011. Photograph: Abed Al Hashlamoun/EPA


The British government has raised concerns about Israel's treatment of Palestinian minors arrested and interrogated for stone-throwing and other crimes, highlighted in an article in the Guardian.


Alistair Burt, the Foreign Office minister for the Middle East, urged Israel to address the UK government's concerns when on a visit to the country a fortnight ago.


Burt told the Guardian he had "raised concerns about the treatment of Palestinian children in Israeli detention. I urged the Israeli government to address these concerns."


Burt was also asked in the House of Commons last week about the issue of solitary confinement for Palestinian minors. Labour MP Sandra Osborne called on the government to condemn the practice and demand the release of 106 children detained in the Israeli military prison system.


In response, Burt referred to an earlier statement in which he said the practice of shackling children was wrong. Minors are routinely shackled throughout court hearings in the Israeli military justice system.


Osborne told the Guardian Israel's treatment of Palestinian minors was "unjustified in the context of human rights". She had been appalled and distressed on visits to the Israeli military juvenile court at Ofer, near Jerusalem. "No civilised democracy should treat children in that way," she said.


The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said the state should apply the same protection to Palestinian minors in detention that it allows to Israeli children.


B'Tselem confirmed that descriptions given to the Guardian by Palestinian juveniles of arrest, detention and interrogation under the military justice system were consistent with testimonies it had collected although mostly with over-18s.


"We have also seen long periods of solitary confinement in a small cell, with lights on 24 hours a day, with detainees unable to follow time and disconnected to the rest of the world," said B'Tselem spokeswoman Sarit Michaeli. "We have testimonies of detainees cuffed in painful positions while under interrogation and sometimes left for long periods.


"Throughout the military justice process, the rights of suspects are violated."


B'Tselem, she said, took issue with the claim by Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev that detainees alleging mistreatment would have complaints dealt with fairly. "This is disingenuous at best," she said.


A B'Tselem study last year showed that out of more than 700 complaints of abuse by Israeli Security Agency (ISA) interrogators brought between 2001 and 2011, none resulted in a criminal investigation.


The complaints were examined by an official of the ISA. "It is not surprising that in most cases the inspector determines that the complaint is not true," said B'Tselem.


In a few cases, the inspector found abuse had taken place but the file was closed without the state attorney's office ordering a criminal investigation. B'Tselem said this "transmits a message to … the potential complainants that the chances of measures being taken against the persons responsible is zero".


Regev insisted anyone who had a complaint that an Israeli official had acted in an improper fashion should bring the information to the Israeli authorities and civil courts. "It will be thoroughly investigated," he said.


He added: "Minors deserve special attention, special consideration … The test of a democracy is how you treat people incarcerated, people in jail, and especially so with minors."


B'Tselem said the provisions of Israeli youth law should formally be applied to Palestinian minors. Night-time arrests in military operations should cease; interrogations should be video-taped; minors should be questioned in the presence of a parent or lawyer; they should have their rights clearly read to them; and proper options for remand should be put in place.


Unicef, the UN agency for children, also raised concerns following the Guardian's article. Children had the "right to protection against violence and abuse," it said in a statement. Unicef was "monitoring the arrest and detention of children and is currently in dialogue with the Israeli authorities to improve the protection of child detainees … All children, at all times, must be treated with dignity and respect, in accordance with the convention on the rights of the child."


In the first 11 months of last year, 222 cases of stone-throwers were brought before the military court, according to a letter sent by the Israeli foreign ministry to Lady Scotland, who visited the Ofer court last autumn, and is writing a report on her findings.


The period from indictment to the conclusion of proceedings had dropped to an average of 92.5 days in 2011 from 167 days in 2007, the letter said.


It pointed out that "many crimes carried out by minors in [the West Bank] are of a violent ideological nature and pose a clear and imminent threat to the public … Despite the unique dilemmas in the dealing with minor suspects in [the West Bank], Israel makes significant efforts to provide for just and fair treatment throughout the entire military legal process in accordance with international standards."


Human rights organisations say Israel's treatment of Palestinian minors breaches the international convention on the rights of the child and the fourth Geneva convention.

Utah to make Gold/Silver legal currency

Friday Oct 14, 2011

Interview with David Morgan, Silver Investor.com, Washington.

The US state of Utah has passed a Bill that legalizes gold and silver for everyday financial transactions.

For Video Go HERE


Press TV talks with David Morgan, Silver Investor.com from Washington who was a party to the signing of this declaration to allow people to use gold and silver as transactional money for their everyday living expenses. He explains how this would be done. Following is an approximate transcript of the interview.


Press TV: There's a huge global insurrection against banker occupation and underneath that we see some interesting cross currents going on as well. You've just returned from the Utah monetary conference where you signed the Utah monetary declaration. How exciting - tell us all about it?


David Morgan: Utah is the first state in the union that has at law passed the fact that citizens can voluntarily transaction in the state in commerce. So in other words simply stated you can buy and sell with gold and silver as a transaction basis throughout the state.


Now, that is a little tough to do coin-wise so they've implemented a strategy that I think is very simple and one that we're familiar with - Put your gold and your silver with a depository; the bank gives you a credit on their balance sheet; they issue you with a debit card; and then you just use the debit card.


So to the merchants, Wal-Mart as an example, you simply swipe your debit card, the transaction goes down to the spot price that day whatever the spot price for gold or silver is and then at the end of the month they reconcile the account based on what you purchased during the month.


Once this is implemented I think it's going to catch on and then of course it sets a standard I think for other states to come along and do the same thing. There are 11 states that have proposed gold and silver in transactions, but Utah is the only one that has passed it in the law so far.



Press TV: If you have your account based in gold and silver and you're using it as your go-to savings account and checking account, you have protection against the government printing up lots of fiat-dollars and inflating the purchasing value away from your currency - so why wouldn't anyone not want to do this?


David Morgan: I do believe it's going to catch on - it's hard to say; there's a argument about Gresham's law that good money chases out bad - that you're only going to save the good money. But I don't think this is necessarily true and I don't have time to go into all the arguments, but I interviewed Larry Hilton who wrote the bill - he's a lawyer in Utah - and basically there's lots of reasons why you would want to use physical gold and silver in a transaction.


One, is some of the merchants will give you a discount, in other words, if you pay in real money they're more likely to take a bit of a discount just like paying for something in cash on the spot so present value for money that's one reason.


Second reason is these markets do fluctuate and there are people who say, I have this really nice move here in silver I think I'm going to take advantage of that I want to buy this X-box of whatever it is because now is the time according to my gut feeling or whatever.


Lastly and one I get all the time is, I'd love to get into the gold and silver market, but how do I sell it - so now you don't have to sell it, you can spend it.


Press TV: Yes, exactly, And I think a lot of people who follow this space, that's their exit for gold and silver is when eventually the whole world goes to gold and silver standards and you start to exit your gold and silver as you spend your gold and silver because that's the new defacto global currency.



Now, there is this global insurrection against banker occupation. We kind of started it a few years back in the work that we do here and now its spread all over the world - folks finally understand it's the banks and the banks of course create all of the fiat money.


Press TV: If you were to talk to somebody from the Occupy Wall Street - What would you tell them about the benefits of gold and silver and how that might relate to their objective?


David Morgan: I think the first thing I would start with is the fact and that is there has never been a fiat currency in the history of mankind that's ever survived. So that implies right now that the fiat system is going to collapse, or collapse further is probably a better way to state it.


And the second one is that gold and silver have maintained purchasing power for that same time frame. It does fluctuate in price, but it doesn't fluctuate in value over a long period of time. But, that's it - I think you get the basic concept that we're on a path out of fiat destruction and it's continuing and it's probably going to get worse and worse.


And secondly the only money outside of the matrix or outside of the system or outside the bankers' hands that you can employ is physical silver and gold and that can now be accomplished quite easily or will be in this Utah Bill. I don't know when they'll bring that in, but that's the trend - gold money.


Press TV: You were at the conference and you spoke on several panels including on called “Booms, Busts and Money Policy”. Explain the role of monetary policy in creating the current bust we see all around us.



David Morgan: Well, in basic high school or even college economics what you're going to find is that there is two main policies that the Federal government is in charge of - they do refer to the Federal Reserve and they talk about fiscal and monetary policy; they talk about the role of the Fed and they say basically it's to maintain low inflation and maintain a high growth rate in the economy; stability is used over and over again - and it's laughable.


This is what their mandate is, but it's anything but the truth.


The truth is that they have a bias to inflate the currency to oblivion. And that's where we're at right now and the Keynesian model is that when the economy goes poorly what you do is stimulate the economy by throwing more money out there either to the government sector or private sector or both and get things rolling again.


Well, it only happens so many times and now we're in a liquidity squeeze. They've got zero interest rates; they've got tons of funny money sitting there in banks, but the credit worthy people that could borrow it, aren't. They're sitting on cash themselves and the people that would love to borrow more are not credit worthy. So you've got a ton of cash just sitting there doing nothing and the system continues to deteriorate almost daily.


Press TV: In the US you've got free market capitalism and you've got a monetary based system run by the Federal Reserve bank in Washington and the theory is that inflation is OK - they'll keep printing dollars because if you inject a lot of currency into the economy it makes credit easier to get and it's a trade off between the GDP growth you can achieve by putting credit into the hands of so-called entrepreneurs Vs. the loss of purchasing power that comes with inflating your money supply.


And for decades this argument looked good. There was a natural rate of inflation; purchasing power went down every year - but so did GDP though. However, it increased so then they got into some statistical gamesmanship didn't they?



David Morgan: Absolutely and you stated it better than I. Basically people use that argument against me saying you've been using that argument for years and it's been good - well, it's not good now. And I had to rethink that question and basically everything has a limit. There's a limit to how many times you can bend a wing before it breaks - there's a limit to how much fiat funny money you can pump into the system before sophisticated people say enough is enough, we don't want this anymore.


Whenever you've got a lot of something the value becomes less and less. Look at the Zimbabwe dollar - most people don't know about that little video I did, was that the one dollar bill unit from Zimbabwe was worth actually more than a US dollar and 18 months later the printing of a 100 trillion dollar note was so worthless that it didn't even get into circulation - that took 18 months. Now I'm not saying the US is going to go that badly, but the implication is certainly the same because the principles are the same.


Print your way out of it - you cannot print wealth. If you could print wealth Zimbabwe would be the richest place on the planet, and it's not.


Press TV: At the moment, despite all of this printing of money in the US, the dollar is enjoying a rally against every major currency in the world and it's making some headway against gold and silver - it's become the go-to currency around the world as we see a continuation of a trend first coming to the fore in 2008 - The unwinding of decades-worth of derivatives and debt, which is forcing people to jump into the US dollar.


Is this sustainable or are people going to find themselves in a few months time as they did back in the 2008-2009 period holding a rapidly depreciating dollar against precious metals?


David Morgan: Great question and hopefully your audience is sophisticated enough to understand I'm not contradicting myself. For short periods of time and that could be three to six months we're going to see what I call a deflationary scare, which you just described. And because the US dollar is the reserve currency of the world and you've got 7 billion people on the planet you can actually print a great deal of money until it starts to really deteriorate even more.



In other words, the deflationary scare has brought a lot of money thinkers into the dollar as the reserve currency or as a stable currency and it, and it's more stable than the Euro right now - and that goes back and forth. So there could be a demand for dollars on a short term basis, but longer term the principles are still there, which means at some point you're going to see what you described as what happened in 2008 and 2009 especially among the nation states.


It's not like China, Russia even some of the IMF, even the UN - all of these have stated that they're looking for alternatives to the dollar - Well, why is that? It's because they know that the dollar's days are numbered.


Press TV: Let's consider an extreme case - let's call it hyper-deflation. The Fed would love inflation, but they can't seem to create inflation with QE1, QE2, Operation Twist - QE3 is on the horizon; they can't seem to create any inflation no matter what they do because the housing collapse and all the mortgages associated with the housing collapse and all the derivatives associated on banks balance sheet with the collapse of the housing market around the world is so great that there is no amount of money printing that will stop this deflationary crash similar to what we saw in the 1930s - I guess it's not a devil's advocate argument because didn't gold do very well in the 1930s as well?


David Morgan: Actually yes. Professor Jastrun - The Golden Constant - a book he wrote proved that gold does best in a deflationary environment. But we were also on a gold standard back then as well so the argument you're making and by my deflationist friends saying, that we are deflating - our asset prices are deflating - The money supply is still increasing and the argument is that they're not getting any stimulus into the economy.


It's true in the private sector - to not contradict myself, but it's not true in the government sector. The fiscal policy is to keep creating more and more and more make-worth jobs in the government so if you take that to the extreme it'll fail at the point at where 100 percent of the population is working for the government and all they're doing is printing funny money and a lot of these jobs are digging up holes and filling them back in again - as a metaphor.


That's the direction that we're going. The government keeps expanding, which of course is one of the main problems i.e. government regulation and the size of government, but that keeps increasing and that's where this money is actually going that they're able to get into the economy.



Press TV: Using a metaphor - I know that your background is in the aviation industry and one of the principles of flying is that the speed of wind over the wing is faster than what you see under the wing and this is why the curvature of the wing is as it is and this gives the lift, which we now know is the recipe for flight.


In the monetary authorities they're trying to fly the economy by creating the right speed of the forces of high speed monetary going one way Vs the natural deflationary tendencies of cost efficiencies and productivity gains going the other way. Now, this is the theory, but the plane is crashing, isn't that so?


David Morgan: It is. Even by the Feds own numbers the US dollar from the time that the Fed started to now; we've lost 95-96 percent of the purchasing power. And again they're mandate is to maintain stability so they really held to their mandate a dollar in 1913 would be the equivalent to a dollar in 2011 and it's not, it's worth about 3 or 4 percent of what it was then.


It think if anyone really examined that in a short term basis in other words went from one hundred basis to three in a year's time that would be hyper inflation. As it's happened over a hundred years or so people think oh well it should be that way or that's the way it just is etc.


No it isn't - because the path is very clear which way it's going. Even with this deflationary scare that we're seeing now, which could maintain for a few more months, it's not going to correct the problem.


There are two ways to correct the problem: one you stop the quantity of money in its tracks and you make the dollar stable you don't print anymore and you let the market clear - everything that's too big to fail fails - every bank that was too big to fail, it fails - let the market determine who wins and who loses - that's free market capitalism.


But you don't see that on Wall Street - they cry and say we have to be bailed out we are too big to fail. Well, that's not free market. The free market allows you to succeed and it allows you to fail, but then they changed the rules... saying the tax payers have to bail us out.

The Toronto Hearings on 9/11

TheTorontoHearings 09/08/11 06:52AM


TheTorontoHearings 09/08/11 07:37AM


TheTorontoHearings 09/08/11 08:53AM


TheTorontoHearings 09/08/11 09:02AM


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9/11 Press For Truth

Judge gets 28 years for 'kids for cash' scandal

By Michael Rubinkam
August 12 2011

A judge has been ordered to spend almost 30 years in prison for his role in a massive juvenile justice bribery scandal that prompted the Pennsylvania's high court to quash thousands of convictions. Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr was sentenced yesterday to 28 years for taking $1m (£617,000) in bribes from the builder of a pair of juvenile detention centres in a case that became known as "kids-for-cash".

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned about 4,000 convictions issued by Ciavarella between 2003 and 2008, saying he violated the constitutional rights of the juveniles, including the right to legal counsel and the right to intelligently enter a plea.

Ciavarella was tried and convicted of racketeering charges earlier this year. Known for his harsh and autocratic demeanour, Ciavarella filled the cells of the private lock-ups with children as young as 10, many of them first-time offenders convicted of theft and other minor crimes.

The judge remained defiant after his arrest, insisting the payments were legal and denying he incarcerated youths for money.Source

NATO kill 85 civilians in Libya

NATO kill 85 civilians

Libyan state TV has broadcast what it said was footage of Colonel Gaddafi's son Khamis visiting people wounded in an air attack. Earlier rebels claimed he had been killed in a NATO air strike last week.
Libyan TV said the footage was recorded on Tuesday. Khamis al-Gaddafi is shown visiting a hospital chatting with people wounded in an air strike on farmhouses near the town of Zlitan, the comment said. It is the first visual evidence of Khamis being alive after the claims of his death.

Tripoli says 85 civilians from 12 families, including 33 children and 32 women, were killed on Monday night by NATO forces near Zlitan. NATO denied the allegations and said all the targets they bombed were military.

The rebels earlier said that Khamis, who commands elite loyalist troops, had been killed in a NATO strike. The government denied the report. Khamis was also wrongly reported dead in March.

Meanwhile, the head of Libya's rebel National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, has sacked the entire executive committee which functions as a cabinet. It followed the assassination of Abdel Fattah Younes, the former interior minister, who commanded the rebel forces. Source
NATO Bombing Libyan Schools, Hospitals, Food Supply and Water Pipeline




For more information

NATO raids kill 85 civilians in Libya

"The Real Terrorist Was Me"

Our real enemies are not those living in a distant land whose names or policies we don't understand; The real enemy is a system that wages war when it's profitable, the CEOs who lay us off our jobs when it's profitable, the Insurance Companies who deny us Health care when it's profitable, the Banks who take away our homes when it's profitable. Our enemies are not several hundred thousands away. They are right here in front of us- Mike Prysner

TRANSCRIPT

I tried hard to be proud of my service

but all I can feel is shame

The racism you can not master the reality of the occupation

it's the people it's the human beings

I seem I claim by guilt everytime I see

an eldery man like the one that could't walk

and we brought by the stretcher and we called the Iraq's Police to take him away

I feel guilt everytime i see a mother with her children like the one who cried hystericly

and screaming that we are worst than Saddam, as we forced her from her home.

I feel guilt anytime I see a young girl, like the one I grabbed by the arm, and dragged into the street.

We are told we are fighting terrorists;

the real terrorist was me and the real terrorism is in this occupation.

Racism within the military has long been an important tool

to justify the destruction and occupation of another country.

It's long been used to justify the killing, subjugation and torture of another people.

Racism is a vital weapon employed by this government.

It's a more important weapon than a rifle, a tank, a bomber or a battleship.

It's more destructive than an artillery shell or a bunker buster, or a Tom Hawk Missile.

While all those weapons are created and owned by this government,

they are harmless without people willing to use them.

Those who send us to war do not have to pull a trigger, or lab a mortal round.

They don't have to fight the war, they merely have to sell the war.

They need a public who is willing to send their soldiers in the harms way.

They need soldiers who are willing to kill and be killed without question.

They can spend millions on a single bomb, but that bomb only becomes a weapon,

when the ranks of the military are willing to follow orders to use it.

They can send every last soldier anywhere on earth,

but there'll only be a war, as soldiers are willing to fight.

And the ruling class, the billionaires who profit from human suffering

care only about expending their wealth controlling the world economy.

Understand that their power lies only in their ability

to convince us that war, oppression and exploitation is in our interest.

They understand that their wealth is dependent on their ability

to convince the working class to die to control the market of another country.

And, convincing us to kill and die is based on their ability

to make us think that we are somehow superior.

Soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen,

have nothing to gain from this occupation.

The vast majority of people living in the U.S. have nothing to gain from this occupation.

In fact, not only do we have nothing to gain,

but we suffer more because of it.

We lose wings, and bear trauma and give our lives

Our families have to watch flag draped coffins rolling into the earth.

Millions in this country without health care, jobs or access to education,

just watch over this government squander of a $ 450 million a day in this occupation.

Poor and working people in this country are sent to kill poor and working people in other country and make the rich richer

without racism we realize that we have more common with the Iraq people than we have with billioners that send us to war

We need to wake up and realize

that our real enemy is not the ones living in a distant land

the people whose names we don't know

and cultures we don't understand

The enemy is people we know very well and people we can identify

The real enemy is a system that wages war when it's profitable

the enemy is the CEOs who lay us off our jobs when it's profitable,

the Insurance Companies who deny us Health care when it's profitable,

the Banks who take away our homes when it's profitable.

Our enemies are not five thousands miles away

the are right here home

but if we organize and fight with our sisters and brothers

we can stop this war we can stop this government and we can create a better world

If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign ennemy...

The loss of Liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger

real or imagined from abroad..."

- James Madison -

Edité par Phaedrus

Tea Baggers, Hate, Racism, and Fox News

Poll Reveals All You Need to Know about Tea Baggers: 57% Still Support George Bush – And, Yes, Their Rage Is Fueled by Racism, Fox News

April 15 2010

By Jon Ponder

For pundits and pols who have been casting about trying to get a fix on the true nature of tea baggers, a new poll finally offers definitive insight. According to the new CBS/New York Times poll of self-described tea-party supporters, 57 percent have a favorable opinion of George W. Bush.

Furthermore, 63 percent say they restrict their their news consumption to right-wing propaganda from Fox News. This may explain why they are outraged over the Obama administration’s efforts to pull the nation back from the brink of economic collapse while apparently having no clue that the person most responsible for the Bush Recession is their own Dear Leader George W. Bush.

It is a tribute to Fox News’ mastery at obfuscating reality with disinformation that these Bush fans are seemingly unaware that the U.S. economy crashed and the Bush Recession began in September 2008, when, indisputably, George Bush was president. Having only been exposed to propaganda from Fox and hatemonger radio and bloggers, tea baggers have no way of knowing that the malfeasant anti-regulatory policies of the Bush administration and the GOP-controlled Congress, combined with Republicans’ now-famous incompetence at governing, were directly responsible for the economic crisis.

The history of the Bush regime is being rewritten faster on Fox and in the right-wing media than anyone can keep up with, but let’s also recall that George Bush left office with 21 percent approval after being well below 50 percent for years. (About 20 percent of Americans also supported Richard Nixon when he resigned in disgrace.) Bush, Cheney et al lied about the pretexts for invading Iraq, which means that the blood of thousands of American soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi families was wasted needlessly, along with billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars that were flushed away at the very moment that the economic collapse was looming.

(Let’s also not forget that, under Bush, the United States paid for universal health care for 30 million or so Iraqis while 45 million Americans had none.) But it was Bush’s ineptitude — and baldfaced lying about it — in addressing the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that finally forced normal Americans to recognize George W. Bush for what he was: Worst. President. Ever. His approval ratings never recovered after that debacle.

It speaks volumes that it’s this barely articulate, incurious aristocratic bully that tea baggers voted for — twice — and still support to this day.

Another prime example of the influence of Fox propaganda: A whopping 64 percent of tea baggers believe Pres. Obama has raised taxes on most Americans. As CBS noted in their coverage of this poll result: “[The] vast majority of Americans [95 percent] got a tax cut under the Obama administration.”

One unsurprising result from the poll is that tea baggers love Fox News’ most popular propagandists. They approve of Sarah Palin by 66 percent and Glenn Beck by 59 percent. This adoration of Beck, in particular, helps explain another aspect of the poll: Like Beck, tea baggers loathe the U.S. president:

Eighty-eight percent disapprove of President Obama’s performance on the job, compared to 40 percent of Americans overall. While half of Americans approve of Mr. Obama’s job performance, just seven percent of Tea Party supporters say he is doing a good job.

Asked to volunteer what they don’t like about Mr. Obama, the top answer, offered by 19 percent of Tea Party supporters, was that they just don’t like him. Eleven percent said he is turning the country more toward socialism, ten percent cited his health care reform efforts, and nine percent said he is dishonest.

Seventy-seven percent describe Mr. Obama as “very liberal,” compared to 31 percent of Americans overall. Fifty-six percent say the president’s policies favor the poor, compared to 27 percent of Americans overall.

The fact that 56 percent of tea baggers say Pres. Obama’s policies favor the poor is telling. While only about 13 percent of Americans are black, a great many white people labor under the misperception that most poor people are black. More about tea baggers’ views on race below.

Ninety-two percent of Tea Party supporters believe President Obama’s policies are moving the country toward socialism. Fifty-two percent of Americans overall share that belief.

Asked what socialism means, roughly half of Tea Party supporters volunteered government ownership or control, far more than any other answer. Eleven percent cited taking away rights or limiting freedom, and eight percent said it means the redistribution of wealth.

Thirty percent of Tea Party supporters believe Mr. Obama was born in another country, despite ample evidence to the contrary. Another 29 percent say they don’t know. Twenty percent of Americans overall, one in five, believe the president was not born in the United States.

Not surprisingly, the poll found that tea baggers deep-seated racist views:

Fifty-two percent believe too much has been made of the problems facing black people. Far fewer Americans overall — 28 percent — believe as much. Among non-Tea Party whites, the percentage who say too much attention has been paid to the problems of black people is 23 percent.

A majority of Tea Party suppers believe the Obama administration treats both blacks and whites the same way. But one in four believe the administration favors blacks over whites, an opinion shared by just 11 percent of Americans overall and seven percent of non-Tea Party whites.

As to demographics, no surprise here. The poll that most tea baggers are middle-aged, white and Southern:

Eighteen percent of Americans identify as Tea Party supporters. The vast majority of them — 89 percent — are white. Just one percent is black.

They tend to skew older: Three in four are 45 years old or older, including 29 percent who are 65 plus. They are also more likely to be men (59 percent) than women (41 percent).
More than one in three (36 percent) hails from the South, far more than any other region. Twenty-five percent come from the West, 22 percent from the Midwest, and 18 percent from the northeast.

A lot of headlines about this poll focus on the surprising result that self-identified tea baggers claim to be wealthier and more educated than would otherwise be expected from people who are so easily manipulated and duped into believing facts that are easily disproved.

There are no national figures better known for their difficult relationships with the truth than Bush, Palin and Beck, so one plausible explanation for this apparent outlier about tea baggers’ income and education levels:

They lied.

Source

Israel: Political leaders taking bribes

Can't say this is a surprise. 

Nothing like getting caught with you hand in the cookie jar.  Well I suppose it's about time a few of them were caught. Took long enough however. This type of activity is rather common I bet.

One also has to wonder who owns what stocks as well, that make profits from their political decisions.

In the US politicians in power make a fortune off Weapons producers, Oil companies and Pharmaceutical companies etc etc.They also get tons of donations at election time from such companies. This happens in many countries.

I bet it happens in Israel too. The problem is no one ever investigates such things.

Bribery case ‘penetrated authorities’

By YAAKOV LAPPIN

13/04/2010 19:22

Custody of 5 suspects in Holyland corruption affair extended.

The Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court extended the custody of five suspects, including the former head engineer of the Jerusalem Municipality and a land developer, who were arrested earlier this month by police investigating the Holyland real estate bribery investigation.

During the remand hearing on Tuesday evening, Judge Avraham Haiman, deputy president of the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court, said the police investigation had uncovered “the most severe episode of corruption we have seen, which penetrated the authorities.” He added, “the severity is increased due to the involvement of senior figures, and I will not say more than that.”

According to police suspicions, between 1999 and 2008 the Holyland development company and associated land development projects, then owned by businessman Hillel Charni, paid tens of millions of shekels in bribes to senior public decision makers in the Jerusalem Municipality, members of its planning and construction committee, the Israel Lands Administration, and others, in exchange for their approval for the Holyland housing project in the capital and additional developments in the North.

Real estate developer Meir Rabin is suspected of acting as an intermediary in the alleged bribery ring.

Police say he promoted Holyland projects and passed on tens of millions in bribery money to decision makers in the Jerusalem Municipality.

On Tuesday, Haiman extended Rabin’s custody by ten days.

The police representative to court said Rabin’s involvement in the alleged offenses was “monstrous,” adding that he refused to cooperate with detectives during questioning. “As the fog lifts, things are becoming clearer,” the representative said.

Rabin’s attorney, Esther Toledan, argued that police were seeking to keep her client in custody because law enforcement officials were waiting to question former prime minister Ehud Olmert, who was mayor of Jerusalem during the time of the alleged offenses, and who is scheduled to return from abroad this weekend.

Toledan’s claims were rejected by Haiman, who ruled that releasing Rabin would undoubtedly lead to a disruption of the investigation.

Haiman extended Charni’s custody by 10 more days on Tuesday, ruling that a “most solid basis of evidence exists to tie the suspect” to the alleged offenses. Haiman described Charni as the “suspect with the largest interest in the corruption affair.”

The police representative to court said “new evidence” had come to light in recent days pertaining to Charni’s role as alleged bribe-giver to “elements” in the Jerusalem Municipality, and alleged attempts by Charni to disrupt the course of the investigation.

Eliyahu Hasson, an accountant for Holyland who worked under Charni, is suspected of transferring bribery funds to officials and forging documents while attempting to hide evidence of his alleged involvement. Haiman said the evidence he studied in the form of a secret police dossier showed that Hasson “carried out all of his employer’s instructions which were criminal offenses,” and extended Hasson’s custody by nine days.

Uri Sheetrit, former chief Jerusalem Municipality engineer, is suspected of dropping his initial opposition to the Holyland project in Jerusalem and becoming a supporter of the plan after receiving very large bribes.

Haiman extended Sheetrit’s custody by nine days, ruling that his release would disrupt the investigation, and noting a “development” in the investigation into Sheetrit’s alleged role. Sheetrit was “entrusted to safeguard the public interest and scenery of the capital,” Haiman said, adding that “the severity of his offenses were great.”

Police said Sheetrit had “many opportunities” to turn down bribes, but chose to receive them at every available opportunity.

Businessman Avigdor Kelner, who managed the Polar Investments company between 1996 and 2007 and had majority stock ownership in the the Holyland Park and Zera companies, is suspected of paying hundreds of thousands of shekels in bribes via companies he owned to public officials in the Jerusalem Municipality to promote the Holyland residential development.

Citing “new developments” in the investigation into Kelner, Haiman extended his custody by nine days.

Meanwhile, new details have surfaced about a man who served as a business adviser to Charni and helped manage the Holyland development for several years.

The man, named as real estate developer Shmuel Dachner, fell out with Charni over a dispute about how much he should have been paid for his services.

According to a civil lawsuit filed by Dachner at the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court last month against a company described as a loan shark, Dachner accumulated heavy debts on the gray market after managing the Holyland project.

According to the lawsuit, Charni began paying off Dachner’s gray market debtors, though in some cases the funds paid by Charni were less than the total debt, sparking the business dispute between the two men.

Dachner had threatened to sue Charni, though the latter reportedly viewed the threat as an attempt to extort him. Source

Holyland case 'just the start'

By YAAKOV LAPPIN

April 15 2010

After ex-mayor's arrest, top J'lem councilman urges more probes.

A senior Jerusalem councilman on Thursday morning said he suspected the Holyland real estate affair was “just the start” and called on authorities to investigate a number of other massive building projects he believes may be tainted with corruption.

Councilman Meir Turgeman, the head of the opposition faction in the Jerusalem municipal council, told Israel Radio he fears plans to build at the YMCA compound, the Gilo Uptown project and Mamilla neighborhood might have been approved in return for kickbacks.

On Wednesday, the police investigation into suspected massive bribery in the Holyland real estate affair took a dramatic turn when detectives from the National Fraud Unit arrested former Jerusalem mayor Uri Lupolianski on suspicion of accepting more than NIS 3 million in bribes to ensure that the housing plan was approved, and of money laundering.

According to police suspicions, between 1999 and 2008, the Holyland development company and associated land development projects, then owned by businessman Hillel Charni, paid tens of millions of shekels in bribes through intermediaries to senior public decision makers in the Jerusalem Municipality, members of its planning and construction committee, the Israel Lands Administration and others, in exchange for their approval for the Holyland housing project in the Malha neighborhood and additional developments in the North.

Lupolianski was deputy mayor and chairman of the municipality’s planning and construction committee between 1993 and 2003, when the Holyland plan was approved. He went on to become a member of the National Building and Planning Committee when he was mayor from 2003 to 2008.

According to police suspicions, by 1999, Lupolianski had accepted NIS 1.5m. in bribes that he received “though another suspect.”

The illicit money was allegedly transferred to Lupolianski in the form of a donation to the Yad Sarah charity for disabled and elderly people, which he founded in 1976.

A Yad Sarah representative released a statement on Wednesday saying that the organization had “nothing to do with the Holyland affair and has never taken a bribe.”

A second alleged transfer of bribes took place between 2006 and 2008, when the Lupolianski allegedly received NIS 1.4m.

During a remand hearing held for Lupolianski at the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday evening, the police representative, Ch.-Supt. Lior Rice, said additional instances of bribery were being investigated, including the transfer of $30,000 to Lupolianski, which he allegedly paid to political field activists to help secure his 2003 mayoral election win. Police also suspect Lupolianski accepted NIS 100,000 in bribes in 2005, as a “donation” to a religious educational center managed by his son.

In return for the cash, police suspect, Lupolianski exploited his positions to promote an enlarged version of the Holyland project within the municipal Construction and Planning Committee, and resisted calls to lower the height of the Holyland residential towers by two stories. He also allegedly helped ensure that almost 1,000 objections to the plan were overruled.

“The suspect was supposed to safeguard the public interest, but in reality he strayed from it,” Rice said. “He saved the project’s backers millions of shekels in expenses and led to the expansion of the project and a significant increase in profit for its backers.”

Judge Avraham Haiman of the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court extended Lupolianski’s custody by five days.

Speaking to Channel 10 News on Tuesday, Lupolianski appeared to attempt to shift responsibility to former prime minister Ehud Olmert, who was mayor of Jerusalem between 1993 and 2003 – when Holyland was approved.

“The mayor is the one who decides, that is the truth,” Lupolianski said. “The deputy mayor has no responsibility.”

Lupolianski’s attorney, Yair Golan, said his client had denied all suspicions against him, had consistently presented receipts for donations received to Yad Sarah and did not attempt to hide the identity of donors.

Meanwhile, anticipating an invitation to the police interrogation room, Olmert cut short a trip abroad and arrived in Israel on Wednesday night, where he is reportedly set to be questioned over the Holyland bribery investigation.

“In light of the growing number of reports, according to which police are seeking to question Olmert on his alleged involvement in the Holyland affair, Olmert decided to return to Israel tonight,” a statement released by Olmert’s spokesman, Amir Dan, said on Wednesday.

“Olmert denies any link to the affair, but has publicly stated last week that he is available for any questioning,” the statement said. “We’ve already seen how large headlines at the start of an investigation change radically with time, when the real facts begin to come to light,” it continued.

A source associated with Olmert told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday that the ex-premier was keen to avoid giving the impression that he was “evading questioning.”

On Wednesday night, Israel Police Insp.-Gen. David Cohen spoke at an award ceremony for police excellence held at Tel Aviv University, and described the alleged corruption affair as “widespread and very worrying.”

“Corruption within the authorities undermines the foundations of a state built on the rule of law,” he said. Public officials suspected of corruption in the investigation abused their power and exploited their public office “for their own personal benefit,” he added.

Addressing critics of the police investigation, Cohen said, “As someone who knows the details of the affair, I advise them to watch what they say.”

Cohen offered his full backing to the National Fraud Unit and to the Israel Police’s Investigations Branch, which he said carried a “huge burden on its shoulders.”

“This is bad news for the city of Jerusalem,” Mayor Nir Barkat said in a statement on Wednesday night. “I hope the truth comes to light.”

“The Jerusalem Municipality will continue to assist the police in its investigation as needed,” Barkat said.

Haiman extended the custody of five of the suspects on Tuesday. During the questioning of one of the suspects this week, detectives from the National Fraud Unit presented documents bearing the initials “E.O.,” and asked the suspect if he knew who bore the initials. The suspect replied that he did not.

Former Olmert associate Uri Messer, suspected as acting as an intermediary between bribe givers and takers and transferring hundreds of thousands of shekels in bribes, is scheduled to appear before court on Thursday for a third remand hearing.

“We do not yet know whether police will seek to keep Messer in custody or release him,” a source associated with Messer told the Post.

Abe Selig contributed to this report. Source

Former Prime Minister Olmert, also former Mayor of The Jerusalem Municipality: Holyland probe is 'unprecedented character assassination'

By Tomer Zarchin,

April 15 2010

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Thursday made his first comments on the Holyland bribery affair since being named a prime suspect earlier in the day, saying there is not a hint of truth in the allegations against him.

Olmert, who was Jerusalem's mayor from 1993 to 2003 and prime minister from 2006 to 2009, said in a pre-recorded statement aired on prime-time television that he was innocent and ready to answer police questions over the so-called Holyland affair.

"I am saying as adamantly as I said in the past, I have never been offered a bribe, and I never accepted a bribe from any man, for any mater, in any way, whether directly or indirectly," Olmert said.

Olmert was named on Thursday as the previously unidentified senior figure suspected of accepting an NIS 3.5 million bribe to facilitate the construction of the Holyland project in Jerusalem.

Police suspect that, between 1999 and 2008, the Holyland Development Company and associated land developers paid tens of millions of dollars in bribes to senior decisionmakers in the Jerusalem municipality, members of its planning and construction committee and officials in the Israel Land Administration.

"I welcome the decision to lift the gag order in what is being called the Holyland affair," Olmert said.

"I am relieved," Olmert said. "My name has in any case appeared in the press, and no one had any doubt about the identity of the suspect named as A.A. This is a case of unprecedented character assassination both in terms of scope and strength."

Olmert went on to add that the allegations have harmed both him and his family, saying baseless rumors about him have been spread that "do not have even a hint of truth to them."

"I supported the Holyland project from the start, when it was just three hotels meant to strengthen tourism in Jerusalem," said Olmert, adding that the project was part of an effort in the mid-1990s to draw non-Orthodox residents to Jerusalem.

Olmert said the project's plan changed after he ceased to be Jerusalem mayor and that he was not involved in it after he left office.

"I want to clarify: In recent years, during the time that I was involved in the state of Israel's most critical matters, the police opened six criminal investigations of bribery against me ? and all six cases that focused on bribery were closed," Olmert said. "Among them was the Bank Leumi case, which was characterized as the most serious corruption case in Israeli history, as were the Cremieux affair and others."

Olmert said the probes have caused him distress, "but not for a moment did I imagine not cooperating with Israel's police investigation," he said.

Olmert, who is already on trial in another corruption case, cut short a trip abroad and returned to Israel early Thursday following reports alleging his involvement.

Olmert's attorney, Eli Zohar, sent a letter to Jerusalem District Attorney Eli Abarbanel on Sunday, asking that the prosecutor's office coordinate the scheduling of any police interrogation of Olmert. However, no response has yet been received.

Police have already questioned dozens of figures connected to the construction project, some of whom testified that Olmert and other senior Jerusalem officials were involved in the suspected graft.

Some of the testimonies went into detail regarding the mechanism with which the funds were allegedly transferred.

Police believe that Olmert received his money through two channels: first through his close friend and associate attorney Uri Messer, who was arrested last week; and second, through his former by bureau chief, Shula Zaken, who is currently abroad and expected to be questioned by police upon her return.

The Rishon Letzion District Court on Thursday released Messer to house arrest on the condition that he would stay outside of Jerusalem and the surrounding area.

The court ruled Messer will have to pay bail in cash, and will be forbidden from traveling abroad for a period of 180 days and from contacting other suspects in the case.

Meanwhile, a Petah Tikva court on Thursday rejected appeals from four other suspects in the case. Hillel Charney, Avigdor Kelner, Eliyahu Hasson and Uri Sheetrit will remain in prison until April 21.

Police announced on Wednesday the arrest of Uri Lupolianski, a rabbi who succeeded Olmert as Jerusalem's mayor and held the post until 2008, in an investigation into whether bribes amounting to millions of dollars were paid for building permits.

No charges have been filed against Lupolianski, who was a deputy mayor under Olmert.

Lupolianski, who was Jerusalem's mayor from 2003 to 2008, is suspected of receiving more than NIS 3 million in bribes from Charney, owner of the site on which the Holyland project was built, in exchange for facilitating the project. Source

Ehud Olmert indicted on three corruption charges in Israel From
August 30 2009