Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

Canadian and Israeli Cases 587
These were feelings and beliefs that he had not experienced before. It seemed
that at the time he made his second confession, on the 16th day of his confinement,
and without any legal advice or social support, he had completely given
up. That is, his free will had become totally overborne by the GSS agents.
The Legal Issues
The case was heard in the Hebron military court, which is used exclusively
for alleged crimes by Arabs against Israeli soldiers or settlers (Helm, 1994;
Human Rights Watch/Middle East, 1994). The main legal issues in the present
case involved the voluntariness of Mr A’s two confessions to the GSS agents as
well as their subsequent reiteration to the police.
After hearing evidence of Mr A’s hooding, abusive body posture and sleep
deprivation, the trial judge commented ‘Well, some of these methods are authorized,
you know’. This response suggests that the Israeli military judicial system
does not regard these techniques as likely to render a confession statement
involuntary and hence unreliable, even though such techniques are consistent
with definitions of torture (Haward, 1974). The legal criteria for determining
voluntariness in an Israeli military court are clearly very stringent and bear
no relationship to the psychological meaning of the term (Gudjonsson, 1995a).
I testified in a small, crowded and noisy room inside the fortified barracks
that contains the court. I had been informed by Mr A’s solicitor that no defendants
are ever acquitted. They invariably admit the charges in order to be able
to plea bargain for the best possible sentence, knowing that they have no realistic
prospect of an acquittal. This view is shared by other lawyers who practice
in Hebron (Helm, 1994).
I testified for well over two hours. I argued that at the time of Mr A’s second
confession his free will had been completely overborne by the methods of interrogation
and confinement. I could not argue the same regarding the first confession,
although psychologically there was no doubt that the confession had been
made against his free will, even if this did not fulfil the legal criteria according
to Israeli military law. Mr A’s facial injuries on 18 June and the ‘hysterical
state’ he was reported to have been in when visited by a doctor the following
day were important in demonstrating the deleterious effects that the confinement
and interrogation were having on his mental state and his ability to give
a voluntary confession. The GSS agent’s explanations of Mr A’s facial injuries
were unconvincing and I expressed my reservations in my evidence. I pointed
out that if the injuries had been self-inflicted as the agent maintained then it
was clear that Mr A had been in a very disturbed mental state during the latter
part of his GSS detention and when giving his second confession. Mr A had
no previous history of mental problems and his alleged self-injurious behaviour
the day after he had made his first confession, accompanied by a very disturbed
mental state when seen by a doctor 24 hours later, meant that by the time he
gave the second confession he would not have been mentally capable of giving
a voluntary confession. This was corroborated by Mr A’s account to me that at
the time of giving the second confession he was no longer capable of resisting
the pressure placed upon him by the GSS agents.