Shadi's Court Session

 Dear Friends, 

I promised to get back to you after the court session for Shadi’s case today, which has been lingering  on  since his arrest on the 18th of  October 2022.  The session was a long one  starting at 9:00 a.m but I finally got the following report from his mother.  Some of you might have received the outcome from her already.  She reported that in general it was not too bad.  The lawyers defending Shadi were able to challenge every claim and highlight every breach that occurred during the investigation.  Through threats one of the investigators somehow forced the main defendant, Khaled Abu Asab, to say that he knew Shadi Khoury, the Christian, to establish the charge.  Even though at the beginning of the investigation,  he had  said that he did not know Shadi at all.  The lawyers showed through documents and video how Khaled was coerced into saying that Shadi had participated.  

Today, five people were interrogated:  two investigators, two fingerprint experts, and a communication expert.  Each one of them had clear procedural breaches and missing links, especially regarding the fingerprints. Under normal and civilized circumstances the case would have been dropped, but then we know this court is not functioning under normal nor civilized conditions, so we do not know what plans the judge has for Shadi.  What is important at the moment is that Shadi will be graduating from high school – The Friends School in el-Bireh- Ramallah on the 2nd of June.  And the next court session will be September 9.  So I hope we will all have a nice summer break.