
The Honenu legal advocacy organization revealed that the ISA (Shin Bet) admitted that one of its interrogators sexually harassed a right-wing activist during an interrogation.
Two years ago Adv. Adi Kedar complained to the ISA's Interrogatee Complaint Unit on behalf of two activists who claimed that they were sexually harassed during a Shin Bet interrogation while they were detained on suspicion of damaging Arab property.
In the complaint, Kedar described the harassment that one of the activists was subjected to: "My client was interrogated by a female interrogator who pressed her mouth to his cheek several times during the interrogation in a manner that was disturbing and offensive, in violation of the law. In addition, during the interrogation, a male interrogator violently stuck his legs in between my client's knees and the interrogator put his hands on my client's legs and stroked his knees. In addition, the interrogator spat at the interrogatee several times, all this while both his hands and legs were cuffed," Kedar described.
In response the Prosecutor's Office wrote on behalf of the Interrogatee Complaint Unit that the ISA admits that the interrogator touched one of the activists: "The interrogator did not rule out that he touched your client's legs but not through sexual intentions." The Prosecutor's Office announced that it would not open an investigation against the interrogators.
Adv. Kedar stated: "It's unclear why in a just country it takes a body that considers itself proper many years to answer a simple factual question which turned out to be correct. It's even more unclear why no measures were taken on the matter. It seems that the world 'criticism' is foreign to the ISA and we've all learned that, especially after the organization's huge failure on October 7th.