VII. Circumventing Criminal Procedure

The most common use of administrative detention by governors and the police is to circumvent the stipulations of ordinary criminal procedure. Governors resort to the convenience of detention without judicial oversight instead of presenting a criminal suspect to the prosecutor within 24 hours to lay formal charges against him or her, as required by Jordanian law.[67] In other cases, governors ordered administrative detention in spite of a judicial ruling granting a defendant bail. On a few occasions, governors even administratively detained persons beyond the expiry of their criminal sentence.

These uses of administrative detention in order to circumvent criminal procedure hollow out protections against arbitrary arrest and detention, and fundamentally undermine the rule of law. Governors place themselves above the law when they fail to honor judges’ rulings of bail or respect the length of criminal sentences judges impose.

Human Rights Watch received allegations of administrative detention in contravention of the rules of criminal procedure from 13 detainees we spoke with in detail. Additionally, in one ward for administrative detainees in Qafqafa prison, 20 of the 24 detainees Human Rights Watch briefly surveyed said they had been administratively arrested after a court found them not guilty, after they posted judicial bail, or after the expiry of their sentence.[68] This points to a high incidence of misuse of administrative detention, and calls into question whether Jordan has any genuine need for administrative detention. Improving and increasing the capacity of the prosecution service and the courts would better meet the needs of justice.

Cases

‘Anbar Muhammad, a Juwaida prison administrative detainee suspected of drunkenness, told Human Rights Watch that police arrested him and brought him to court:

Then they took me to a judge who sent me home. However, the police took me back to the station where I spent the night, and then they took me to the governorate. I was held upstairs in the cells. Then I was taken downstairs to see a policeman who asked, “Were you drunk?” He took my statement, in which I denied being drunk. Then he ordered me detained administratively under a guarantee of 10,000 dinars. My wife tried to present a personal guarantee two days ago, and pay the 35 dinars in fees, but the governorate official refused.[69]

The most common cases of administrative detention are those imposed despite judicial rulings granting bail. In one case, police officers ferried Abd al-Hafizh al-Salayima from police station to police station despite the fact that a judge granted him bail after he was charged with using forged banknotes. Within a three-week period from July 15 to August 4, 2007, he said that he was detained initially at Bayadir police station for nine days, then roughly every second day police officers moved him between the Capital police station and a succession of different police stations: he was detained at the Criminal Investigation unit, the North Amman police station, Abu Nusair police station, South Amman police station, Zarqa police station, Mafraq police station, East Amman police station, and Muhajirun police station, with brief stays at the Wihdat and Shmeisani stations, all interspersed with stays at the Capital police station. On August 4, he said, “The governor decided in the end to set bail at 10,000 dinars. My wife, mother, and brother all together presented the 10,000 dinars. You can call my wife, Umm Rami, to confirm.” The governor rejected the guarantee and had al-Salayima transported to Salt prison.[70]

Other administrative detainees paint a similar picture of police and governors disregarding judicial rulings. Muhammad Abu ‘A’isha, of Aqaba, said he turned himself in to the police after a fight with his brother on August 1, 2007. The officers detained him for two days and took his statement to a judge, who ordered him remanded in custody for seven days, which the judge renewed twice. Four days before the end of this period, the judge held a bail hearing and released him on 100 dinars (US$140) bail, which Abu ‘A’isha paid. He told Human Rights Watch,

[The police] took me back to prison and collected my belongings, and then took me to Medina police station in Aqaba, the same I had gone to before. They held me there for one day, I don’t know on whose orders. By 12: 30 p.m. the next day, they took me to the governorate. I didn’t see the governor, only his secretary, ‘Atif al-Batush. He ... sent me to Aqaba prison.[71]

Mahmud Musa’s experience in Irbid was almost identical. Police arrested him and two others on August 3, 2007, for getting into a fight. The next day, a judge at the court of first instance in Irbid “sent me home,” Musa told Human Rights Watch, but instead “I was taken to the police station, and from there to the security directorate, and from there to the Northern Police station, where I stayed one day.” The next afternoon he was taken to the governorate, where a clerk, not the governor, signed his detention order. “The same day, they took me to Qafqafa [prison].”[72] The experiences of both Abu ‘A’isha and Musa in described in further detail in Chapter VIII.

Ahmad Furaihat, an Amman public bus driver nearing retirement, said he can barely feed his family of nine. After a passenger accused him of stealing a briefcase, police arrested him and a judge ordered him detained. When the complainant and his witnesses failed to appear at the second court hearing, the judge released Furaihat on condition that he sign a paper stating that his failure to appear in court in the future would lead to a 100 dinar fine. “Instead,” he said, “the police took me to the governorate, [and then] took me to Juwaida prison and ... I learned that the governor had detained me administratively ... and that my bail had been set at at 10,000 dinars.”[73]

Hashim ‘Atwa and his younger brother Ra’id said their cousin accused them of stealing 150 dinars on a day on which both of them were in Egypt on business. A judge ordered them released on bail, but the police took them back to Quwaisma police station, near Amman. Hashim ‘Atwa told Human Rights Watch,

From there, the police took us to the governorate, where an official took our statement, put it on the bottom of the papers that constituted our file, and set bail for us at 10,000 dinars. All they do upon arrest or at the governorate is to look into the computer whether there are prior arrests and administratively detain you if there are.[74]

Khalid al-Sayyid said his arrest was due to an exchange of gunshots between him and the bodyguards of a Qatari prince. Jordanian authorities charged him at the Major Crimes Court in Amman, but a judge released him on bail. His family paid the bail and came to Muwaqqar prison, where he was held, with the letter of release in hand. At that point, al-Sayyid said,

The police took me to the Capital [police] station, where I stayed for three days without telephone calls. I was insulted there. Then they took me to the Major Crimes Court, then back, then to Zahran police station, then back. Then the governor detained me administratively.[75]

The accounts of ‘Izzat al-Hirasin, detained in Salt prison, Yahya Bani Fadl, detained in Birain, Firas Nur al-Din, also sent to Birain, Lafi Yusif, in Aqaba prison, and Abdullah al-Hunaiti, sent to Swaqa, all portray governors detaining suspects despite judicial rulings that the detainees said had ordered their release. Further such cases are among those featured in Chapter VIII, “Due Process Violations.”

Like some of the women in protective custody who had earlier served criminal sentences, Abd al-Karim Mahmud said he had served five months in prison for being in a fight, but that after the expiry of his sentence, “I was taken from Muwaqqar prison to the Criminal Investigation Department in Amman’s Northern Hashimi quarter, and on Saturday to Amman’s Marka area mutasarrif [district administrator], whose secretary detained me, because on Saturday no one else was there. I’ve now been detained administratively 25 days.[76] Similarly, Ahmad Hasan from Irbid told Human Rights Watch, “Twenty days ago I ended my sentence of three months for a fight, and then the governor detained me, setting bail at 5,000 dinars.[77]

Swaqa prison administrative detainee Wa’il Ahmad recounted that in 2006 “there was an amnesty and many inmates here from Swaqa were freed, but the next day, 40 were returned under administrative detention.”[78]