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Adalah: Israel's move to charge cop who killed disabled Palestinian with reckless manslaughter provides further evidence Israel should itself be investigated for tolerance of cop killings

22/10/2020
Israeli Border Police officer shot dead 32-year-old autistic man Eyad al-Hallaq in Jerusalem’s Old City on 30 May 2020 as he was making his way to special needs school.

Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel issued a response on Wednesday, 21 October 2020 to the Israeli Justice Ministry's Police Investigations Department (PID) decision that it would weigh only reckless manslaughter charges for the police officer who killed 32-year-old autistic Palestinian man Eyad al-Hallaq.

 

Al-Hallaq was shot dead by an Israeli Border Police officer in Jerusalem’s Old City on 30 May 2020 while he was making his way to the special needs school where he both worked and studied.

 

PID also announced Wednesday that it would close the case against the officer’s commander.

 

Adalah issued a response Wednesday afternoon, 21 October 2020, to the PID decision:

 

“We once again bear witness to Israel’s shocking and disgraceful attempt to whitewash the killing of an innocent Palestinian man by Israeli police. Israel’s law enforcement system is concerned with protecting those who kill Palestinians. As long as Israeli authorities maintain the racist perspective according to which all Palestinians are perceived as enemies, the consequences will remain the same: cop killings of innocent people and sweeping tolerance for such serious crimes. Adalah calls once again for the establishment of a professional, independent committee charged with investigating Israeli cop killings of Palestinians and overseeing the work of the Police Investigative Department.”

 

Just last month, Adalah issued a statement – adopted by the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel – calling for the prosecution of those responsible for the October 2000 killings of 13 Palestinians and demanding an end to Israeli police killings of Palestinian citizens, and to the state culture of impunity – including a myriad of failures, omissions and the obstruction of justice in the course of so-called “investigations”, that perceives Palestinians as "enemies", and that allows Israeli law enforcement officers to escape accountability.

 

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