UN demands Israel free terrorist on grounds of ‘severe mental disorders’
The United Nations is demanding that Israel release, on mental health grounds, a Palestinian terrorist convicted on two counts of attempted murder in 2015.
On Oct. 12, 2015, in an attack caught on security cameras, Ahmad Manasra, who was then 13 year old, and his cousin Hassan Khalid Manasra, 15, both residents of Beit Hanina, stabbed a 13-year-old boy and a security guard outside a candy shop in Jerusalem’s Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood.
Manasra was originally sentenced to 12 years in prison, which was shortened to nine and a half years after his case was appealed to the Supreme Court. He is due for release in approximately two and a half years.
Recently, the Israel Prisons Service transferred Manasra to a psychiatric hospital due to suspicions that he was attempting to harm himself. Manasra’s lawyer claims his client is schizophrenic, in a psychotic state, and wants to die.
“Independent human rights experts have urged the Government of Israel to immediately release Ahmad Manasra, a 20-year-old Palestinian detained in Israeli prisons since he was 14 years old, while suffering serious mental health conditions.
“Ahmad’s imprisonment for almost six years has deprived him of childhood, family environment, protection, and all the rights he should have been guaranteed as a child,” a post on the official Facebook page of the U.N.’s Geneva headquarters states. The post does not mention why Manasra is in prison.
“This case is haunting in many respects and his continuous detention, despite his deteriorating mental conditions, is a stain on all of us as part of the international human rights community,” the post states.
This article first appeared in Israel Hayom.
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