Israeli Border Officer Charged With Manslaughter for May Shooting of Palastinian Teen
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[quote]Footage recorded by US broadcaster CNN captured a group of five or six border police officers in the area, one of whom could be seen firing at the time when the youth was hit. A post-mortem found he died after being hit in the chest by a live round, an Israeli human rights group said. A justice ministry statement challenged Deri's assertion that he fired only rubber bullets, in accordance with instructions. "He deliberately fired a live round at the centre of the deceased's body, while intending at the least to cause him serious injury with the forseeable possibility of his death and while concealing his actions at the time," it said. "With these actions the accused caused, through a forbidden act, the death of the deceased," the charge sheet read.[/quote]
[URL="https://uk.news.yahoo.com/israeli-policeman-charged-manslaughter-palestinian-teen-133816899.html#qOhbutl"]Source[/URL]
Glad to see some action being taken here.
Now watch as Hamas says it's not enough, and the violent cycle continues.
Either way, glad to know that at least some justice is still going on.
So a guy deliberately uses live rounds rather than rubber like he was ordered, kills someone, and only gets manslaughter rather than murder?
[QUOTE=deadoon;46560334]So a guy deliberately uses live rounds rather than rubber like he was ordered, kills someone, and only gets manslaughter rather than murder?[/QUOTE]
Not sure if you could call this murder because of lack of premeditation. The guy was there because his job required him to be there. The protesters (roughly 150 in all) came to him and they were violent. He had the right to protect himself, but he did the wrong thing and used live ammunition, resulting in someone getting killed. He's definitely responsible and should be punished but I wouldn't call it a murder.
[QUOTE=deadoon;46560334]So a guy deliberately uses live rounds rather than rubber like he was ordered, kills someone, and only gets manslaughter rather than murder?[/QUOTE]
In Israeli law murder denotes either premeditated killing or killing while committing or fleeing another crime. The Israeli definition of manslaughter is closer to what in American law is known as second degree murder, intentional but unplanned killing.
[QUOTE=Sega Saturn;46560389]Not sure if you could call this murder because of lack of premeditation. The guy was there because his job required him to be there. The protesters (roughly 150 in all) came to him and they were violent. He had the right to protect himself, but he did the wrong thing and used live ammunition, resulting in someone getting killed. He's definitely responsible and should be punished but I wouldn't call it a murder.[/QUOTE]
I thought this was the incident where the guys were on an elevated area out of range of those killed.
[URL]http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/29/world/israeli-shooting-investigation/[/URL]
Yeah, it was, the second person killed was an hour later.
I don't think you could really call that a defensive kill.
[QUOTE=deadoon;46560606]I thought this was the incident where the guys were on an elevated area out of range of those killed.
[URL]http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/29/world/israeli-shooting-investigation/[/URL]
Yeah, it was, the second person killed was an hour later.
I don't think you could really call that a defensive kill.[/QUOTE]
Probably not. And they're also accusing him of intentionally putting a live round in a rubber bullet magazine to conceal the fact he was firing live rounds even from the other officers around him, which means it was very likely premeditated.
I can only assume they went for manslaughter because they thought they didn't have enough hard evidence to convict him of murder.
Okay. More information on this case, from [URL="http://news.walla.co.il/item/2804863"]here[/URL] (Hebrew).
It looks like the officer is being charged with manslaughter only and not murder is because the evidence against him is still somewhat problematic.
One major issue with the evidence is that there's still no good explanation as to why the victim seen in the video fell towards the soldiers despite being shot in the chest.
The defense is also claiming that the bullet provided by the Palestinians which linked the soldier's weapon to the incident should not have remained intact if it indeed went through the victim's body and ended up in his backpack, and that there was a truck parking between the demonstrators and the soldiers which should have prevented a direct line of fire between them.
On the other hand the state has ballistic and DNA evidence linking the bullet to both the officer and the soldier, and the victim's family agreed to allow his body to be autopsied in Israel and that also backs the state's version.
The case is still under investigation because there's another dead demonstrator and two more wounded, supposedly also from live ammunition, who refused to be examined in Israel nor delivered the bullets to Israel, so they're still a mystery.
[QUOTE=ScumBunny;46570071]One major issue with the evidence is that there's still no good explanation as to why the victim seen in the video fell towards the soldiers despite being shot in the chest.[/QUOTE]
This is exactly the same thing Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorists trot out all the time to claim there was a second gunman on the grassy knoll. "Look, look! His head goes backwards and to the left, so the bullet couldn't have come from behind!" Unfortunately for them, the physics involved isn't as simple as, say, throwing a phone book at the president's head. Bodies struck by bullets don't react like clacker balls.
More importantly, if the autopsy identified an entrance wound on the boy's chest and an exit wound in his back, then there's no point in debating which way he fell.
How is the direction he fell important. The energy imparted by the bullet isn't going to do shit to change the direction he's falling in (havent seen the video though so I can't really comment).
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