"Shocking and inhumane conditions": The Israeli who was arrested in Greece tells of the difficult two weeks

Dudi Ashkenazi has been released from prison on the Greek island of Kos, after being suspected of being wanted by Interpol.

Now, he shares the shock of the arrest, the concern for his wife Rachel, the longing to return to Israel and his family, and also the anger over Peru and Israel.

"People can not be prevented from going abroad, but they need to be warned"

Yoav Itiel

07/07/2022

Thursday, 07 July 2022, 07:14 Updated: 07:25

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In the video: Adv. Jaslowitz upon his landing from Ben Gurion Airport after the release of Dudi Ashkenazi (Photo: Yoav Atiel)

Dudi Ashkenazi, the Israeli who was arrested upon landing on the Greek island of Kos, where he arrived exactly two weeks ago, was released today (Wednesday) from detention under restrictive conditions in which he will stay on the island of Rhodes.

That is, until the international legal entanglement ends and Peru "comes down from the tree" and recognizes that Greece has arrested the wrong person for it.

During these two weeks, the ferry was tossed back and forth between the islands, but the day passed, for the first time without handcuffs, with his wife Racheli and his sister Osnat to the island of Rhodes, where they had meanwhile rented an apartment.

In a conversation with Walla!

He talks about the shock with the arrest, the difficult conditions, the feeling of being a free person again and the longing to return to Israel, the family in Moshav Bat Hefer, and the routine of life and work.

Ashkenazi begins and tells about the release after two weeks of detention.

"I learned the hard way that there is no better feeling than this in the world," says Ashkenazi.

Ashkenazi goes on to detail the little things in which his release is expressed.

"I can sit or stand without having to ask permission, without being told. I can drink when I feel dry in my mouth and I can walk when I feel like it. I can hold my wife's hand. What a feeling of release. I could not even take a step there, without anyone's permission. "And you miss it if you do something you were not allowed to do," he says.

Now, Ashkenazi hopes he can complete the release, and hopes to return to Israel heavy to be with his family and children.

He shares: "I want to give them a warm hug and assure them that I will not leave them again. I want to return to my life, to my routine. To my work.

I am a family man and a workman.

These are the main points of my life "

"There were shocking conditions," Dudi Ashkenazi (Photo: Official website, Walla!)

Ashkenazi goes on to say about the difficult detention conditions in which he stayed.

"It was the first time in my life that I saw a detention cell," he says. The legs and mice are crawling, mosquitoes that fly and bother all the time and the air smells of sewage of urine and feces. "

He went on to say that "you are in a corridor of three meters by a meter, and there you are supposed to stay for three days. On the right side there are two niches with a ceiling seventy meters high with mattresses that also stink of urine. "That's what I try to think about where I sleep now. I managed to fall asleep and I see cockroaches next to me. And so every day, including one cockroach I already recognized that he lacks one sense of."

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"Suddenly she has to deal with all these worries on her own," Racheli, Dudi Ashkenazi's wife (Photo: courtesy of those photographed, family album)

He goes on to say that with him were detainees from various countries, including Albania, Turkey, Afghanistan and even a detainee from Iran.

Ashkenazi provides that some were criminals, some were drug dealers, but many were refugees who were arrested in the absence of any permits he had.

He further shares that the hardest thing for him was the separation from his wife.

"I took care of Racheli, my wife, who I knew was out, alone. On our trips we are both together and I always take care of everything. For me she is the queen, at home she works very hard and when we go on a trip then I make sure she does not have to worry about anything, flights, hotels, packages. I know that suddenly she has to deal with all these worries on her own. "

"Can happen to anyone"

"At night I would have thoughts, how am I now proving my innocence. How do I get out of there. How do I not get to Peru where they want my extradition," he shares, "the wheels turn in your head. Such a thing falls on you like thunder on a clear day and you have no idea "In general, where and why it comes from you, and out of nowhere. I am an honest, law-abiding person, and I constantly think there how I get out of it. Sitting closed, cut off from the world and my wife outside is my lioness and she is my mouth to save me."

Ashkenazi says that the chain of events that led to his arrest began when he lost his passport, in 2002. Only when he was arrested did Ashkenazi realize that the same drug dealer, for whom he was charged, apparently found the passport, or bought it from another person.

"He used it for forgery with an Azerbaijani passport with the same name and date of birth, but the passport number is not mine and the picture is not mine. He made a drug deal in Peru. See here the name David Ashkenazi, and the date of birth, and that was enough for them to arrest "It's probably really possible for anyone to happen anywhere."

"I have scars left from the incident"

Ashkenazi then talks about the plans for the day when he will return to Israel.

"When I return I cut my passport. I will never leave the country again! I told my wife that I no longer take the risk that God forbid such a thing could happen to me again in the future. There is no situation that I, my wife, or my children will leave the country in the future," he says. .

He goes on to tell of the mental damage the incident left him with.

"I have a feeling it's just one scar I already feel this episode has left in me. They stopped my life in one day and there are probably things that have changed. That's how it feels to me," he says, "I was released in the afternoon, I sit with my wife, watching her all the time I'm afraid maybe it's going to happen again and I'll suddenly not be with her again. The body. The body contracts. It's a kind of stress. "

The ship that was waiting for Dudi Ashkenazi after his release (Photo: official website, Walla!)

Another Ashkenazi shares the moment he learned that he had been arrested on suspicion of drug offenses.

"I was told that I was supposedly wanted in Peru for a trade of 4.2 kilograms of heroin or cocaine or something like that. It was very scary," he says. They will leave me to be tried in Greece. "

He adds that a large part of the legal process is still before him, and that he must bring all the paperwork documents from Peru, including fingerprints and photos, to prove that he is not the criminal in question.

"In the Azerbaijani passport of the same David Ashkenazi wanted, the picture is not mine," he says. "I am 52 years old. To be neither a bus driver nor an appraiser. "

Now, Ashkenazi accuses Peru of his arrest, claiming that "they did not check all the details before sending the arrest warrant in all directions. Neither the picture, nor the number.

Ashkenazi also criticizes Israeli institutions, which he claims should have warned him of the arrest warrant against him.

"I have gone abroad several times in recent years and have not been told anything" (Photo: Official website, courtesy of those photographed)

"I have gone abroad several times in recent years, both for vacations with my wife in Europe and for work matters and have not been told anything," he claims, "I was in Germany on behalf of work, I was in China.

In life there was nothing in the direction of what happened now.

The State of Israel is connected to Interpol and I am sure that they are informed and that they know who is wanted and that Interpol is looking for David Ashkenazi and they did not give me the slightest warning.

No warning and nothing.

Arriving in Greece everything is foreign here and I am suddenly stopped right at the exit of the airport.

It's a nightmare movie.

It is a horror play "

he further adds that the prosecutor told him and the lawyer explicitly that she is aware that he is not wanted but cannot release him without the judges' approval." Apparently Yair Lapid's conversation as our foreign minister with the Greek foreign minister is not enough help " "Ashkenazi says," So maybe the State of Israel should put its weight behind this matter as well and turn to Greece and demand my return to Israel. "

In addition, arrest for mental damage, Ashkenazi describes that the incident led him to financial damage of about a quarter of a million shekels.

Ashkenazi goes on to say his conclusions from the incident and says that "it is impossible to tell people not to travel outside the country because you may be arrested on false suspicion as happened to me, but it can be prevented from the direction of the State of Israel. It is possible as well as the media. If there really is a detention order then execute it in Israel or warn the person that there is a wrong detention order from a foreign country that can complicate it when he comes abroad.

"It is impossible to prevent people from going abroad, but they should be warned."

Dudi Ashkenazi's family and friends have launched a mass recruitment campaign to finance the legal expenses that were required to prove his innocence and that will be required until he returns to the arms of his loved ones in Israel.

On the website the amounts raised will be saved solely for the sake of this fight in a dedicated money-saving track.

As of this morning, 473 people have already donated NIS 106,384 towards the target of NIS 150,000.

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• Greece

• drug dealing

• Peru