Israeli policeman who killed a Palestinian in Jaffa sentenced to 1 year imprisonment

Monday November 10, 2008 00:23 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

The Israeli Central Court in Tel Aviv decided on Sunday that the Israeli border guard police officer, Tomer Avraha, who killed a Palestinian worker in Jaffa, should only be imprisoned to one year.

On October 2006, the officer shot and killed a Palestinian worker identified as Eyad Abu Raeyya, from Tarqoumia village, near the southern West Bank city of Hebron.  The assault took place as Abu Raeyya was working in Jaffa.

In January 2006, the officer was convicted of “involuntary man slaughter”.

The incident took place when an Israeli police unit surrounded a building which was under construction in Jaffa.

 Undocumented Palestinian laborers were working there, and the police arrested three of them and took them to a room in the building after handcuffing and blindfolding them.

The policemen then harshly attacked, punched, clubbed and kicked the bound workers.

Later on, the workers were ordered to sit and face a wall. Shortly afterwards, one of the officers identified as Tomer Avraha, shot and killed Abu Raeyya. He later claimed that the bullet was fired by mistake due to the “heat of the moment”.

The slain Palestinian did not resist arrest, did not inflect any danger on the officers, and was killed in cold blood, but the court decided that the murder was unintentional. Yet, the officers’ attorney expressed “disappointment”, and said that the officer should not have been even sent to court and that he should have been sent to an internal hearting committee.

israel | israeli attacks | news report saed at imemc dot org