License to Kill, part 1: Shot to death while in custody
http://972mag.com/license-to-kill-part-1-shot-to-death-while-in-custody/101176/
The first part in a series of articles examining case files of Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers — the ensuing investigations, by other Israeli soldiers, indicate a lack of interest in discovering the truth or achieving justice. In part one, a Palestinian man is arrested for not carrying an ID card. A few hours later, while handcuffed inside a military base, he is shot to death. The investigation files reveal serious and troubling contradictions. The shooter’s commander admits numerous failures, and yet, nobody will stand trial.
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When you first hear the story of Yasser a-Tmeizi, the first thought that comes to mind is that this has to be fiction, that there must be something else behind the dry facts of this report, one in hundreds we read about Israeli soldiers shooting a Palestinian. Even if you delve into the details of the case — the details the Israeli media publishes, at least — the feeling does not change. Surely it is impossible that a handcuffed man is shot to death inside a military base, by a soldier, and nobody is indicted.
Only when we received the records from the investigation conducted by the Israeli Military Police in this matter, including detailed testimonies of all the soldiers involved, did we realize to what extent things are rotten in the kingdom of Judea.
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The documents we obtained have gone through the Israeli military censor. The names of the soldiers were redacted from them, as well as the names of some of the places where the crimes were committed. The purpose of this report is to pursue in any way those who committed the killings. True, had the victim not been Palestinian, they might have been sentenced to many years under lock and key, but the real culprit is the military legal apparatus. The point is not the individual soldier, but the system that allows Israeli security forces to investigate and clear themselves of serious charges time after time, while the pile of corpses they leave behind grows steadily.
