PA Ministry of Finance works to ease paperwork for prisoners released before 1995 to receive salaries and benefits
Headline: "Karake: The problem of obtaining indictments of veteran released [prisoners] has been solved"
"Director of the [PLO] Commission of Prisoners' Affairs Issa Karake said that the problem of obtaining indictments of prisoners released before 1995, needed to complete their files and for the payment of their salaries and benefits, will soon be resolved together with the [PA] Ministry of Finance. He added: 'The Ministry of Finance understood and is cooperating. The easements [that will be determined] according to objective criteria will be published before the end of this month [October 2014]. Our mission is to ease the process and not to complicate it.' Prisoners released 30 or 40 years ago run into difficulties in obtaining their indictments and verdicts, because of all the time that has passed and the non-existence of these documents in the Israeli courts' archives. This leads them to appoint a lawyer and pay exorbitant legal fees in order to obtain them.
Karake said: 'The lawyers take advantage of the fact that the released [prisoners] need these documents, request exorbitant amounts from them, and play with them. It is disgraceful to trade in the needs of released [prisoners].'
He continued: 'Many complaints have reached us recently regarding the fact that Palestinian lawyers, some of them with Israeli identity cards (i.e., Israeli Arabs), have requested and collected fees of between 3,000 and 7,000 Israeli shekels for each prisoner, without obtaining the necessary indictments and verdicts."
"Director of the [PLO] Commission of Prisoners' Affairs Issa Karake said that the problem of obtaining indictments of prisoners released before 1995, needed to complete their files and for the payment of their salaries and benefits, will soon be resolved together with the [PA] Ministry of Finance. He added: 'The Ministry of Finance understood and is cooperating. The easements [that will be determined] according to objective criteria will be published before the end of this month [October 2014]. Our mission is to ease the process and not to complicate it.' Prisoners released 30 or 40 years ago run into difficulties in obtaining their indictments and verdicts, because of all the time that has passed and the non-existence of these documents in the Israeli courts' archives. This leads them to appoint a lawyer and pay exorbitant legal fees in order to obtain them.
Karake said: 'The lawyers take advantage of the fact that the released [prisoners] need these documents, request exorbitant amounts from them, and play with them. It is disgraceful to trade in the needs of released [prisoners].'
He continued: 'Many complaints have reached us recently regarding the fact that Palestinian lawyers, some of them with Israeli identity cards (i.e., Israeli Arabs), have requested and collected fees of between 3,000 and 7,000 Israeli shekels for each prisoner, without obtaining the necessary indictments and verdicts."