Prosecution decides to avoid using confessions tortured out of Duma arsonists

The Central District Attorney’s Office has decided to avoid using confessions obtained out of the suspects from 2015 Duma terror attack using “special means,” the Kan Public Broadcaster reports.

The prosecution is believed to have other evidence off which to base its indictments against the two suspects, and recognized that testimony obtained through torture may not be admissible, the report says.

Two homes in Duma, south of Nablus, in the West Bank, were set alight in the July 31, 2015, attack, and the Hebrew words “revenge” and “long live the king messiah” were spray-painted on their walls, alongside a Star of David.

In the attack, 18 months old Ali Dawabsha was burned to death and father Saad Dawabsha, his wife Riham and their son Ahmed, who was 4 at the time, were critically injured. Saad died in August and Riham in September of that year, after treatment in Israeli hospitals. Ahmed, the only surviving member of the family, received months of treatment for severe burns.

Kan reports that the Central District Court will soon be ruling on the admissibility of any confession obtained by the Shin Bet security service using “special circumstances.”

Palestinians look at the damage after a house was set on fire and a baby killed, allegedly by Jewish terrorists, in the West Bank village of Duma, on July 31, 2015. (AFP/Jaafar Ashtiyeh)