March Friday 8-2000:

Commando's family asks High Court to fire Navon(1)
The family of 3PO Guy Golan, a naval commando killed during a botched raid in southern Lebanon, yesterday asked the High Court of Justice to order the firing OC Chaplaincy Corps Maj.-Gen. Gad Navon because of his responsibility for the misidentification of body parts belonging to Golan and another soldier and their consequent burial in the wrong graves.

The burial mix-up was the last in a series of tragic events that began with the deaths of 11 commandos and an Israeli Army doctor on September 4, 1997.

A commission of inquiry led by retired judge Eliahu Vinograd found that Navon, 79, who has served as chief chaplain for the past 23 years, was responsible for a foul-up in which additional body parts, retrieved after Golan and 3PO Raz Tebi had already been buried, were mistakenly deposited in the other's grave.

The Vinograd Commission ruled that the errors were due to mistaken identification by an anthropologist acting at Navon's insistence. The anthropological examination was conducted by Prof. Baruch Erensburg at Sheba Hospital at Tel Hashomer after Navon decided to bypass the L. Greenberg Institute for Forensic Medicine in Abu Kabir because he thought its procedures were unnecessarily long.

Representing the Golan family, attorney Elad Shraga wrote that according to the committee findings, "the responsibility for the horrible mistake in the identification of the body parts and their burial in the wrong graves fell squarely on Navon. Furthermore, the committee reached grave conclusions about the way Navon conducted himself throughout the affair and, among other things, ruled that his actions were determined by extraneous considerations."

The petitioners asked the court to order the government to show cause why it should not fire Navon, and a temporary injunction preventing him from officiating at Israeli Army ceremonies and participating in General Staff meetings until the main petition is heard.

Following the Vinograd Commission findings, Navon announced he would retire on Independence Day.

1- Jerusalem Post, 10/03/2000

March Wednesday 15-2000:

Hezbollah puts torturing Dirani before world's conscience (1)
Hezbollah issued a statement on torturing prisoner Hajj Mustafa Dirani by the Israeli occupation forces.

"We read in the media yesterday about the brutal psychological torture that brother prisoner Hajj Abu Ali - Mustafa al-Dirani had been subjected to at the hands of the Zionist grudge and dirtiness that have reached a lowest level," a Hezbollah communiqué read.

"As we consider this hideous act as one of the worst in the Zionists' black history, and as we condemn what has been perpetrated by these low criminal hands, we put this horrible crime before the world's human rights groups, the international groups for prisoners and detainees, and the whole international community which was shocked by the disgraceful news."

We urge them all to take prompt action to secure the release of Freedom Fighter Prisoner al-Dirani and all the prisoners and detainees in the darkness of the Israeli prisons, the communiqué added.

"The Islamic Resistance, which has shouldered the liberation of its soil and people from the claws of the Israeli usurping enemy, regards the issue of all prisoners as its first and major cause."

Liberating the prisoners is one of IR's first duties which it has always worked to achieve. It will keep on working hard as much as it can to have this goal materialize, the communiqué concluded.

Israel condemned for abusing Dirani (2)
Premier Salim Hoss on Tuesday condemned Israel’s alleged torture of imprisoned resistance leader Mustafa Dirani and urged the UN to stop Israel’s “brutal and terrorist” actions.
“We demand an end to such Nazi, terrorist, brutal and inhumane acts,” Hoss said in a letter addressed to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
The premier sent similar letters to the International Committee for the Red Cross and the UN Human Rights Commission. He met the ICRC’s Lebanon chief, Henri Fournier, and requested that the Red Cross attempt to meet Dirani and investigate alleged acts of torture.
Dirani, leader of the Believers’ Resistance Group, has filed a $1.5 million lawsuit against Israel, claiming that his jailors raped and tortured him.
Dirani has been held in “administrative custody” since May 1994, although no official charges have been filed.
He was abducted from his Bekaa home by Israeli commandos attempting to secure information about Israeli Air Force navigator Ron Arad, shot down over Lebanon in 1986 and missing ever since.
The Israelis have consistently refused to grant the ICRC access to Dirani since his 1994 kidnapping, Fournier said.
Fournier told The Daily Star that the ICRC was “doing its utmost” to persuade the Israeli authorities to allow the organization to see Dirani.
Tyre MP Mohammed Abdel-Hamid Beydoun, who heads Amal’s politburo, also condemned the alleged atrocities.
“We call on the international community to condemn Israel and expose its crimes,” he said, urging the government to raise the detainees issue in international fora. The Believers’ Resistance Group warned on Tuesday that Israel would pay for these “shameful” acts.
Hizbullah called the alleged abuse “one of the worst crimes in the Zionists’ tarnished record.”

1-   Manar TV 15/03/2000

2-   Daily Star 15/03/2000