The Supreme Court accepted a
request by the state on Monday for an additional
appeal hearing on Lebanese terrorist Mustafa Dirani’s NIS 6 million damages suit
against Israel.
Deputy Supreme Court President Eliezer Rivlin ruled that
an expanded panel of justices will review the matter of whether Dirani should be
allowed to proceed with his lawsuit, filed in the Tel Aviv District Court in
2000.
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Monday’s decision came after a majority Supreme Court ruling in
July dismissed the state’s appeal against a 2005 Tel Aviv District Court ruling
allowing Dirani to sue Israel.
Dirani, a Lebanese citizen, claims that
while in administrative detention in Israel, interrogators raped him, sodomized
him with a club, kept him naked for weeks and humiliated him in an effort to
extract information about missing soldier Ron Arad’s whereabouts.
In
July’s Supreme Court hearing, the state argued that the court should dismiss
Dirani’s lawsuit outright and act in accordance with Anglo-American law, which
prohibits enemies of the state residing in hostile countries from suing Israel.
However, Justices Ayala Procaccia (ret.) and Salim Joubran ruled that the case
should be clarified on its merits. (Justice Hanan Melcer voted against the
decision.) Following Monday’s decision, the state will have a second chance to
present its arguments before an expanded panel, likely consisting of five
Supreme Court justices.
The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel, an NGO,
welcomed the decision to hold an additional hearing.
“Dirani and other
enemies of Israel are standing and laughing at the upside-down policy of a court
that prioritizes their interests over those of the state,” said Nachi Eyal,
Legal Forum director-general. “It is absurd to allow an enemy to sue the
state.”
Dirani is a former leader of Lebanese Shi’ite terrorist group
Amal, whose forces captured IAF navigator Lt.- Col. Ron Arad in October 1986
during a mission to attack PLO targets near Sidon in Lebanon. In 1994, Dirani
was captured after thenprime minister Yitzhak Rabin ordered a raid on his house,
believing that the terrorist leader had personal knowledge of Arad’s
whereabouts.
Dirani was released in 2004 as part of a prisoner exchange
with Hezbollah, despite a High Court of Justice petition by Arad’s family to
prevent this. In return, Hezbollah released kidnapped Israeli businessman
Elhanan Tannenbaum along with the bodies of three IDF soldiers they had murdered
in October 2000.