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Israel's top court rules Lebanese militant cannot sue Israel for torture

Xinhua, January 15, 2015 Adjust font size:

Israel's Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the Lebanese Shiite militant, Mustafa Dirani, "has no right" to sue Israel for alleged tortures and rape charges during his captivity in Israel.

An expanded panel of seven justices narrowly overruled a previous decision of the Supreme Court that allowed a 1.5-million-U.S.-dollar lawsuit by Dirani to go forward.

Dirani filed the suit in 2000 while in jail, claiming that he had been systematically beaten and raped by his Israeli jailers.

Armed commandos kidnapped Dirani from his Lebanese home in 1994. He was interrogated and held in Israel as "a bargaining chip" in exchange for information on the missing air force navigator Ron Arad, whose plane was shot down over Lebanon in 1986.

Dirani was held in administrative detention, without trail and deprived of visits by the International Committee of Red Cross, until his release in 2004 in a prisoner swap deal.

In today's verdict, Supreme Court President Asher Grunis said that in this case, the court should apply a British legal rule that does not allow enemies to use one's legal system during wartime.

"Since Dirani was released from custody and rejoined a terror organization that seeks the destruction of Israel, there is no room to investigate his claim," Grunis said.

"Dirani has no one to blame but himself. It's unbelievable to me that Dirani is allowed, while acting against the state and working to destroy it, to use its institutions," he added.

Dirani was a leader of the militant wing of the Shiite Amal Movement. Israel believed that he was involved in the kidnapping of the missing navigator, Arad.

Dirani claimed that he was beaten regularly, kept naked for a month, and even sodomized several times by a military officer who for years was known only by his code name "Captain George."

In 2013, a gag order was lifted and it was announced that "Captain George" was Doron Zehavi, an army reserve officer who lives in central Israel.

Zehavi gave a lengthily interview to the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot, in which he claimed that he was acting upon higher orders and that the state made him "a scapegoat." Endit