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London - On 15 August, Carmi Gillon, former head of the Israel's General Security Services (GSS), is scheduled to arrive in Copenhagen, where he is expected to take up his new post as Ambassador of Israel with the agreement of Denmark.
Carmi Gillon first joined the GSS in 1988, and became overall head of the service from March 1995 to February 1996. During his tenure, and until the Israel High Court of Justice ruled against such methods in 1999, GSS interrogators were officially sanctioned to use "moderate physical pressure" on detainees (the vast majority of them Palestinians). From October 1994, when a suicide bomb killed 23 people, they were allowed to use "increased physical pressure".
Secret government guidelines set down what "moderate physical pressure" and "increased physical pressure" allowed; according to court testimonies of GSS members themselves, this included subjecting detainees to sleep deprivation, prolonged shackling in painful positions, hooding with filthy sacks, being forced to squat like a frog (gambaz) and violent shaking (tiltul). During Carmi Gillon's period of service with the GSS such methods of interrogation were used against several hundred Palestinian detainees every year, many of whom were later released without charge.
After the death of a detainee, 'Abd al-Samad Harizat, in April 1995 from a brain haemorrhage as a result of violent shaking, the ministerial committee which oversees the GSS were reportedly divided as to whether to allow an extension of the "exceptional dispensation" granted to the GSS to use "increased physical pressure". The GSS, then headed by Carmi Gillon, argued strongly that such means were necessary and that 48 attacks over the previous six months had been foiled as a result of special interrogation methods. At a meeting of the ministerial committee on 16 August 1995 the exceptional dispensation to use increased physical pressure was renewed until October 1995. The committee agreed that violent shaking was no longer "regular" and would continue to be used but only with the special authorization of the head of the GSS.
According to detainees' testimonies, violent shaking of detainees normally took place with the legs shackled below a low chair and the hands handcuffed behind and between the back bars of a chair; this diminishes the support...