Taxed by torture

By Graham Usher

But a deeper motive was the growing awareness among these members, and the constituencies they represent, that graft and violence are smaller aberrations of the ruling Palestinian regime than the political and economic sinews that hold it together. A recent death and a forthcoming report by a Palestinian human rights organisation reveal how deep -- and how interconnected -- the blight is.

On the same day the cabinet was being approved, Walid Mahmoud Al-Qawasmi became the 20th Palestinian to die in PA custody. A manager of a Bethlehem insurance firm and father of eight, Al-Qawasmi had been arrested in Hebron on 25 July by officers from the PA's General Intelligence Service (GIS), one of the PA's 11 intelligence forces that operate in the Occupied Territories.

Two weeks later, his family visited him at a GIS detention centre in Jericho. Clearly in declining health, Al-Qawasmi's only comment was that he was "innocent." It is unclear of what, since the GIS had filed no charges against him.

On 9 August Al-Qawasmi died en route from Jericho to Rafidia Hospital in Nablus. Unofficial statements by GIS officers said he had died from heat exhaustion due to the searing temperatures in Jericho this summer. But Al-Qawasmi's family insist there were signs of torture on the corpse. A witness at the autopsy told the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group (PHRMG) that Al-Qawasmi's death was the result of a brain haemorrhage caused by a fractured skull. The fracture, said the witness, was the result of "severe beating to the head."

Why was Al-Qawasmi arrested? A report on Israel's Army Radio quoted Palestinian security sources as saying that Al-Qawasmi was suspected of selling land to Israelis. But Al-Qawasmi's Palestinian acquaintances reject the explanation. Al-Qawasmi was involved in insurance, not real estate, they say, and had a clean reputation in the community. The allegation is further weakened by the PA's unusual response to the death.

Five Palestinians suspected of land-dealing (a crime viewed as collaboration by the PA and the vast majority of Palestinians) have been killed since the PA was installed in 1994. The corpses are usually dumped outside the Palestinian areas and usually accompanied by official denials from the PA that it had anything to do with the deaths (a disavowal that has convinced neither the Israeli government nor Palestinian human rights groups). In Al-Qawasmi's case, however, the PA could not deny involvement. Nor, for the most part, did it try to.

On 10 August, Arafat ordered an official investigation into the circumstances of Al-Qawasmi's death, pledging that the findings would be "revealed soon." In a statement published next day on the front page of the Palestinian Al-Quds newspaper, GIS Chief Amin Al-Hindi vowed to punish any officer found to be connected with Al-Qawasmi's death. "The death of Walid Al-Qawasmi has affected me badly," lamented Al-Hindi.

Neither the condolences nor the promise of an official inquiry cut much ice with Palestinian human rights groups. "There have been 20 such promises, every time, in fact, a Palestinian dies in PA custody," says Bassem Eid, the PHRMG's director. "Nothing will come from the investigation."

Eid believes the reason for Al-Qawasmi's arrest may have been financial and that the PA's decision to open an investigation was less to uncover the facts than to prevent the public and PLC from probing too deeply into the real cause of his detention by the GIS.

Eid bases his hunch on 40 testimonies collected by his organisation over the last two years from Palestinian contractors and sub-contractors, mostly from the Hebron area. Thirty-six of the testimonies accuse the GIS and the PA's Preventive Security Force (PSF) of illegal arrest, torture and prolonged detention, sometimes as long as 14 months. The charge levelled against the contractors is tax fraud, with the GIS and PSF alleging that the contractors are producing fake invoices to evade paying taxes to the PA. Under interrogation, and often under torture, some of the detainees have confessed to the crime. But the issue at hand is "not whether the individual contractors are innocent or guilty," says Eid. "It is the illegal procedures used against them."

The case of Ibrahim Al-Shawahin from Yatta near Hebron is typical. According to a sworn statement given to the PHRMG, Al-Shawahin was arrested by the PSF in February this year. His interrogators accused him of selling tax documents. For the next 36 hours, Al-Shawahin was subject to severe torture, including beating, sleep deprivation and having "the finger of my left hand broken by the interrogator." Detained for a further two months, Al-Shawahin was eventually released after paying the PSF 20,000 Israeli shekels (about $5,000), with a pledge to pay another 10,000 shekels in post-dated cheques. According to his lawyer, the amount Al-Shawahin actually owes the PA's tax departments is 8,500 shekels.

Aside from the use of torture and absence of any due process, the most disturbing aspect of the detainees' testimonies is the obscurity over where the money extorted from them eventually ends up. Most claim they paid cash, without getting a receipt, directly to the intelligence forces to secure their release. But the PA's Ministry of Finance says it has received payment from only one of the victims. "On the basis of our testimonies, we are talking about one million shekels that is currently unaccounted for," says Eid. "Where is the money?"

Many Palestinians have a fair idea, though few would openly say so. According to the Oslo Accords, the PA is supposed to employ around 21,000 people in its security forces, paid and accounted for out of the PA's budget. But the actual number of Palestinians currently working for the security and intelligence bodies is between 35,000 and 40,000. How these excess officers are salaried, equipped and armed has long been a source of speculation by PLC members and by Palestinians at large.

And, on the basis of the PHRMG's report, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that the PA security forces, under the pretext of clamping down on tax fraud, are extorting money from Palestinian civilians to fund the militaristic regime that increasingly rules over them rather than on their behalf.