Israeli online daily Haaretz reported on Monday that the Police Investigation Department (PID) filed an indictment against a Border Police officer accused of killing a Palestinian in the French Hill neighborhood of Jerusalem in November last year.
Investigation revealed that Officer Shmuel Yehezkel, 21, shot Samir Ribahi Dari in the back.
The Department also refuted Yehezkel’s claim that Dari, a resident of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Isawiyah, had tried to run him down with his car, especially since the he was shot in his back.
Also, the testimonies of witnesses were completely different from the report filed by the Jerusalem Police.
Police investigators said following the inquiry, that "it appears the circumstances of the incident were unjustified".
"The claim that Dari attempted to run down the officer is groundless; Dari arrived at the scene after hearing his nephew was arrested by the police", Haaretz quoted a senior police investigator saying, "He got out of his car in order to confront the officers. Later, he went back to his car and as he got further away, he was shot".
Dari was transferred to Hadassah University Hospital, in Jerusalem; when he was pronounced dead clashes erupted in his town between the residents and the Israeli police.
According to Israeli police sources, the crowd attempted to break into the hospital, smashed car windows and set fire to other cars, Israeli police source said.
Haaretz added that an autopsy performed on Dari’s body, performed at the Abu Kabir Forensic Medicine Institute, revealed that he was shot in the back, which means that he was outside his car when he was shot, and could not have attempted to run down the police officer.
"It’s impossible that Dari tried to run over the officers because if he had done so, he would also have hurt his nephew, who was next to them", an investigator of the PID said.
