East Jerusalem pharmacist arrested, held overnight on false claim he wore ‘ISIS ring’
Police failed to check what was written on the ring or if it resembled ISIS logo. Lawyer slammed arrest and police ‘Islamophobia’; magistrate was unmoved; district court intervened
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
A pharmacist from East Jerusalem was arrested and detained by the police on Monday on suspicion of identifying with the ISIS terror organization due to a ring he was wearing — which the police wrongly believed to be a depiction of the ISIS terror group’s flag.
Although the police acknowledged in the Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court that it had not translated the writing on the ring nor checked to see what the ISIS flag looks like, the judge agreed to extend the man’s detention until Thursday.
He was held in prison overnight Monday and all of Tuesday, but after the man appealed against his ongoing detention, a Central-Lod District Court judge ordered he be released, saying the ring did not resemble the ISIS flag, did not constitute identification with the terror group, and added that it was unclear to him how the police could have started the investigation without checking the basic details of the complaint.
The incident began on Monday night, when a security official at a pharmacy in Petah Tikva reported to the police that a pharmacist working there, whose name is barred from publication, was wearing an “ISIS ring.”
The police arrested the man at the pharmacy on Monday night and requested he be detained out of an alleged concern that he may tamper with evidence if released.
The ring itself has the image of the Seal of Muhammad depicted with white letters on a black background declaring that “Muhammad is God’s messenger.” The ISIS flag also bears the image of the Seal of Muhammad but with black letters on a white background that is itself on a black standard with a separate Islamic phrase above the seal.
During the Petah Tikva Magistrate Court’s hearing for the police’s request to extend the pharmacist’s detention on Tuesday, the police representative admitted that the Arabic writing on the ring had not been translated and that the police had not received a professional statement from the relevant police department regarding the ring and its alleged connection to ISIS before acting on the complaint.
Asked in court what the ring says, the police officer representing the Petah Tikva police in court said “I don’t read Arabic.” When asked if someone had translated the writing on the ring for the police, he said simply that the ring was “known to be a ring which is the symbol of ISIS.”
The officer also conceded that the police had not appended any image of ISIS’s flag to the investigation file for the court to compare with the ring.
The police also failed to obtain the necessary written authorization from the State Attorney’s Office to open an investigation into the pharmacist on suspicion of identifying with a terrorist organization, although the police representative said informal authorization via email was issued since the complaint was made outside of office hours.
“It’s written on the ring that Muhammad is God’s messenger,” Attorney Alaa Tellawi, representing the pharmacist, told the police officer in court, who responded with merely an “OK.”
Tellawi told the court that the wording on the ring was one of the basic tenants of Islam, repeated five times a day during Muslim prayer services, and that there was nothing illegitimate about wearing a ring with this phrase on it. The lawyer added that the police should have checked the ISIS flag before opening an investigation and arresting a pharmacist with no background of terrorist activity or suspicion.
“This suspect has no criminal record, he has a doctorate in pharmacology, he’s married, he’s serious, he has a family, and doesn’t need to be arrested because of the police’s Islamophobia,” Tellawi told the magistrate’s court.
Despite acknowledging the problems with the case and saying that the writing on the ring was “legitimate,” the magistrate court judge nevertheless insisted that the “design and graphics of the ring” resembled the design and graphics of the ISIS symbol.
The judge was likely referencing the fact that both the ring and the ISIS flag reproduce the same stylized format of the words “Muhammad is God’s messenger” as that on the Seal of Muhammad which dates back at least several hundred years, although the origin of which is unconnected to the terror organization.
The judge ruled that the man be held in detention until September 26 in accordance with the police request regarding evidence tampering.
On Tuesday night, however, a district court judge at the Central-Lod District Court overruled the lower court and ordered the man to be released, saying there was nothing on the ring that indicated an association to ISIS, and pointing out that the police had not included in its case file an image of the ISIS flag.
“If the police did not check to compare the ring and the logo of the terror organization, it cannot be said that there is even the beginning of a basis of suspicion against the appellant,” wrote Judge Ido Druyan-Gamlielle, while also criticizing the police for having failed to obtain written authorization from the State Attorney’s Office for the investigation.
“It is not at all clear how it would be possible to begin an investigation on suspicion of publicizing the symbol of a terror organization when they [the police] don’t know and don’t check what that symbol looks like,” opined the judge.
He also dismissed concerns that the man may tamper with evidence. “Bearing in mind the weakness of the foundation for the investigation,” he said, little weight could be given to this claim, either.
The judge did, however, obligate the man to present himself to the police for questioning if summoned within the next 60 days and sign a NIS 3,000 guarantee that he would comply with such a summons.
