New details in the 'Safard Prisoners' affair that were revealed for the first time yesterday inHaredim 10: Two young Israelis, Breslov Hasidim, were arrested about two weeks ago in Spain after local law enforcement authorities seized a large quantity of drugs from them. According to those close to the two, "this was a sting operation that exploited their innocence.".
After the initial details were published, new details about the arrest were revealed: it turns out that the affair is much more complicated than the activists initially thought. The details are not definitively clear, because all the reports are based on a single phone call between mother and son. Chabad emissaries in Spain, who tried to visit the two detainees, also encountered great difficulty, due to the law in Spain that prohibits visiting prisoners before they have been brought before a judge.
The arrest was made on Tuesday, but not last week, but on Tuesday, April 29. The two, Nathan and Yosef, are 22 and 23 years old, residents of Jerusalem and Safed. Nathan is a yeshiva student and Yosef is married. The two left the country for a trip to Europe. Their surveillance began at the airport in Madrid, where they were questioned and released. While they were in the country, they were asked by unnamed officials to transport a vehicle from Spain to another European country. The vehicle, it turns out, contained a large amount of drugs, and before they could even cross the border, they were arrested by local police.
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The news of the arrest came to light after Nathan's mother began to suspect that something was wrong, after her son, who used to call once every two days, stopped calling. It was only last Saturday evening that she received a phone call from her son, who told her in uncontrollable tears: "I am being held in a foreign country, I have fallen for a big sting operation. All that remains is to pray." The mother turned in tears to the activists of the 'Shuvo Banim' community, who for the time being have recruited a local lawyer.
Breslov Hasidic activists in Israel, along with lawyers from Israel and Spain, and in cooperation with Chabad Hasidic Jews in Spain, mobilized to help the two detainees. "It is not possible to visit them until an indictment is filed," one of the activists handling the case told the Walla website. "They fell into a trap and someone took advantage of their innocence. They did not know that there was such a large amount of drugs in the vehicle.".
As for whether the detainees knew about the contents of the packages in their possession, opinions are divided. An activist handling the case tells Haredim10: "They certainly did not know about the enormous quantity they had in their possession. This is a huge drug trafficking network that was exposed after extensive surveillance, and there was a wicked evildoer who used the innocence of these young people to smuggle the drugs. We know of many other detainees in the case - local residents.".
The activists hope that the matter of the Israelis' arrest will not be discussed in the local press in Spain, since then it will be very difficult to commute their sentences.
A group of Israeli businessmen have begun working to involve the Dayan Hiddu Weiss from Antwerp, who at the time handled the 'Japanese Prisoners' affair. They also intend to fly to Spain to assist the two as much as possible, with the focus of their efforts being to try to convince the prison administration to allow kosher food and tefillin to be brought in for the two.
