ISRAEL/FILE: Israel says three Jews confess to revenge slaying of Palestinian teen

Record ID: 401298

  • Title: ISRAEL/FILE: Israel says three Jews confess to revenge slaying of Palestinian teen
  • Date: 14th July 2014
  • Summary: PETAH TIKVA, ISRAEL (JULY 14, 2014) (REUTERS) COURT BUILDING SIGN IN HEBREW, ARABIC AND ENGLISH THAT READS "PETACH-TIKVA TRIAL COURT" LAWYERS AND MEDIA OUTSIDE COURT ROOM COURT SECURITY BESIDE SIGN THAT READS IN HEBREW "NOT OPEN TO PUBLIC" LAWYERS IN LOBBY VARIOUS OF POLICE OFFICER HOLDING DOCUMENTS OUTSIDE COURT ROOM VARIOUS OF DOCUMENTS BEING TRANSFERRED POLICE OFFICE
  • Embargoed: 29th July 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Reuters ID: LVA9U014X4XTLPE28DGOBRTR8W2F
  • Story Text: Three Israeli Jews arrested for the July 2 murder of Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khudair have confessed to bludgeoning and burning him alive after randomly seizing him off an East Jerusalem street, officials said on Monday (July 14).
    Easing a court-issued gag order on the case, Israel said the suspects, two of whom are minors, had told interrogators they sought to avenge to the kidnap and killing of three Jewish seminary students in the occupied West Bank last month.
    The names of the suspects, who were remanded by an Israeli court pending a formal indictment, were not immediately given.
    Lawyers for the three said access to their clients had been limited by the Israeli authorities, making it hard to know how they might plead to eventual charges. The adult suspect facing the gravest allegations might try to mitigate them by citing past mental illness, the legal aid group representing him said.
    "My client is charged, or is suspected at the moment, but will be charged on Friday with carrying out the murder in Shuafat, attempted kidnapping, and serious assault the previous day, and torching cars," lawyer Roze Aharon, who represents one of the unnamed suspects, said.
    Two of the suspects tried to kidnap an 8-year-old Palestinian boy in Jerusalem on July 1, a day before they seized Abu Khudair, the Shin Bet said. Prevented from doing so by the boy's mother, they went on to torch Arab-owned cars, it added.
    A lawyer for one of the two minors said he will only see the evidence after the indictment, but his client is aware of the gravity of the charges.
    "He's young, he's underage. He knows the charges are severe. He's well aware of the situation. He's waiting to see the indictment as we all are," lawyer Kveller Ben-Tzion said.
    According to Israel's Shin Bet security agency, in the early hours of July 2, as Muslims celebrated the end of the daylight Ramadan fast, the three suspects "patrolled Arab neighbourhoods of Jerusalem for a number of hours, in an attempt to find a victim to abduct, until they spotted Mohammed Abu Khudair".
    Bundling him into their car, they drove to a forest outside the city where the 29-year-old suspect beat him on the head with a tyre iron and, helped by the two 17-year-olds, doused him with fuel and lit it, the Shin Bet said in a statement.
    An autopsy found that Abu Khudair, 16, was burned alive.
    His case stoked tensions that were already high as Israeli troops spent 2 1/2 weeks scouring the West Bank for the missing seminary students before finding their bodies.
    Israeli prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who blamed Hamas for those killings and launched a crackdown against the Palestinian Islamist group, deplored Abu Khudair's murder as "loathsome", ordered police to find the culprits swiftly and pledged to see them prosecuted to the full.
    The Shin Bet said the three suspects lived in the Jerusalem area. Several of their relatives were also arrested but freed after being cleared of any direct role in Abu Khudair's killing.
    rh/mc/jrc
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