The lawyer of detained journalist Jihad Barakat said that officers from the preventive security apparatus refused to allow him to see his client and denied they knew anything about him.
In Facebook remarks on Friday lawyer Majed Quzmar stated that officers from the preventive security prevented him from entering their headquarters in Ramallah to visit Barakat at the pretext that the officials in charge were not there and thus they had no authority to allow him in.
Quzmar added that a senior officer told him later that Barakat was not held at the preventive security headquarters and that he did not hear about someone by that name.
Soldiers from the preventive security forces rounded up Barakat on Thursday evening as he was taking pictures of Palestinian government vehicles boarded by premier Rami al-Hamdallah and his entourage as they were being stopped and searched at an Israeli roadblock in Tulkarem.
