E/CN.4/1997/7 page 28 Israel 115. By letter dated 11 November 1996, the Government replied to information the Special Rapporteur had transmitted on 14 July 1995 concerning the practice of torture in the country (see E/CN.4/1996/35/Add.1, paras. 384-386). The Government stated that Israel's law forbade all forms of torture or maltreatment and conformed to the basic provisions of the Convention against Torture, to which it is a party. Every allegation of maltreatment was thoroughly investigated by the Department for Investigation of the Police at the Ministry of Justice, which is under the direct supervision of the State Attorney. Disciplinary or criminal measures were instigated against those responsible. In addition, any person could petition directly the Supreme Court of Israel sitting as a High Court of Justice, and the petition would be heard within 48 hours of submission. 116. Regarding access to judges, while it was true that persons suspected of State security offences could be held for up to 15 days without notification of arrest, this seldom-used procedure could be brought into effect only at the discretion of the judge when the Minister of Defence affirmed that the security of the State required temporary secrecy. While persons in the Administered Territories could be held for up to 11 days in serious cases, arrested persons could file a petition for cancellation of the arrest order and release from detention and the military courts would hear their petitions within a few days. Habeas corpus petitions could also be submitted to the Supreme Court. Israel had no policy or system of incommunicado detention, but sometimes a delay in seeing family and lawyers could occur as a result of security measures that must be taken. In any event a person must be allowed to meet with a lawyer by the fifteenth day and this requirement would be shortened to 10 days under a new Criminal Procedure Law that would enter into force in May 1997. In extreme cases, the President of the District Court could deny access to lawyers for up to 21 days. Any denial of access could be appealed to both the District Court and the Supreme Court. 117. The Government asserted that personal and political motives might be behind the fabricated or exaggerated allegations of torture made by individuals who had been arrested. The motive of making these allegations would be to embarrass the Government of Israel by spreading anti-Israel disinformation in the form of bogus human rights complaints or to justify their own actions vis-à-vis their fellow Arabs. 118. The Special Rapporteur transmitted to the Government information on 12 individual cases. He also made 7 urgent appeals on behalf of 24 persons. The Government provided replies to two of the appeals, one of which is summarized in the following paragraph. The Government also replied to seven cases that had been transmitted in 1995. 119. The Government replied to the urgent appeal transmitted by the Special Rapporteur on 15 November 1996 on behalf of Mohammad Abdel Aziz Hamdan, whose appeal to the Supreme Court that “physical pressure” not be used against him during his custodial interrogation was rejected, by transmitting a copy of the 14 November 1996 Supreme Court decision on the case. The Government also provided a background paper prepared by the Ministry of Justice on “Israel's Interrogation Practices and Policies”. In the paper, the Government affirms