Khalifa Abu Samra, student

I live in Yatta with my family: my father who is 52 and a laborer in Israel ; my mother; my brothers, Noor 18, Nazeeh 12, Bilal 11; and my sisters, Asma'a 23, Ihsan 19, Yasmine 16, Areej 11, Fatmah 10, and Yamama 9.

I am studying accounting at the Jerusalem Open University in Yatta. I am in my second year. I had to postpone my studies for a semester because of my family's financial situation. At the beginning of March, I got a job in Beer-Sheva next to Soroka Hospital .

My friend Bassem Hamamdeh and I work together in Beer-Sheva. We worked on the site six days a week for two weeks from 7:00AM until 4:30PM. We didn't work on Saturdays but we stayed on the construction site. During those two weeks, I slept in a trailer with Bassem Hamamdeh, Bilal Nassar, Nasser Nassar, Bassem Nassar, Fadi Abu Zahra, Ayman Hushyeh, and Subhi Abu Fanus who is 15 years old. We are all from Yatta.

On Thursday (March 22, 2007) around 2:30AM, I was sleeping in a trailer with all my friends when I suddenly woke up and heard policemen telling us to go with them to the police station. There were four policemen in uniform and two undercover police. One of the policemen tied our hands and led me and my seven friends to a Ford police vehicle.

We arrived at the Beer-Sheva police station around 4:30AM where we were thoroughly searched. They found with me my Mitsubishi car keys which one of the policemen thought belonged to Bilal Nassar. He hit me in the face. After they told the policeman that the keys were actually mine, he tried to attack me but the other policemen held him back. Balal's hands and my hands were tied.

They brought us some papers ten minutes later and told us to sign them. On the papers were statements claiming that we had not been hit. We all signed them. They took Bassem Hamamdeh and Subhi Abu-Fanus for interrogation somewhere else. After a few minutes they took me into a room, handcuffed me with metal cuffs, and tied my hands to the ceiling with a rope. One of the policemen kicked my leg and punched me in the stomach. He told me that someone stole a car around 3:00AM and that one of us knew who the thief was. I told him that I had been sleeping and had not seen anyone steal a car. I also told him that they had arrested us at 2:30AM before the car theft they were talking about. I asked him "How am I supposed to know who stole the car?" He said that my car was a stolen one. I told him that my car wasn't stolen, so he said they found 2 DVD players, a computer screen and 2 knives. I repeated that the car was mine and that I had the registration.

I stayed in the waiting room until 3:00pm and was then taken to court. We waited at court for almost an hour and were then told that the hearing had been postponed for two days. We were then taken back to the police station, where we stayed until 10:30pm. At 10:30pm we were taken to a jail in Netivot, where we stayed until our next hearing on Sunday. On Sunday they told us the hearing had been postponed for an entire month.

After 22 days in detention, Balal, Nasser , Bassem, Bassem Hamamdeh, Fadi, Ayman, and I were all sentenced to 3 months in jail. They took Bassem Hamamdeh and Bassem Nassar to Hadekel Prison and the rest of us to a prison in the Negev (Ketziyot). After 3 days in the Negev , they moved us to the Ma'asiyahu Prison in Ramle. We were there for 45 days and were then released.

The policemen in the Beer-Sheva police station had taken my Siemens cell-phone, my wallet with my driving license and student card, and my silver Mitsubishi Lancer car whose number is 1365215.

I signed a commitment to not enter Israel for three years. I was given a suspended sentence for three months and told that if I were caught in Israel again they would put me in jail for three months and fine me 5000 shekels.

Khalifa Ahmad Muhammad Abu Samra, 23, is a student and a resident of Yatta village in Hebron district. His testimony was given to 'Issa Amro in PARC hotel in Hebron on 13 May, 2007.