Indictment filed against Hebron shooter
JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST
The Jerusalem District Attorney on Wednesday afternoon filed an indictment against Zev Braude, the settler suspected of shooting two Palestinians during clashes which followed the evacuation of the Beit Hashalom house in Hebron last week.
In the indictment, the district attorney accuses Braude of causing injury with malicious intent.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court ordered that Braude be released to house arrest.
In her decision, Judge Malka Aviv said that Braude was a "grown man that the Palestinians tried to lynch [and was helpless]."
"This is a man without a [criminal] past, [and] this is the first incident in which he found himself in trouble," she said.
Two suspects, Braude and Gabi Bibi, had been arrested in connection with the incident. Both settlers had previously said that they were defending themselves from being lynched, while the Palestinians said they were innocent bystanders and were attacked for no reason. Some of the incident was caught on film and released by the group B'tzelem.
The lawyer for Braude praised the decision, saying that the "cat is out of the bag."
"Braude is not a danger, the prosecution requests that he remain in custody only in order to satisfy the media and because of political pressure," Ariel Etri said.
During the ruling, the judge also leveled harsh criticism against the police for the handling of the case.
"The fact that the police would make light of the actions of the Palestinians to such an extreme degree - we must apply this to the suspect," Aviv said. "We cannot allow such an obvious double-standard."
On Sunday, Judge Aviv ordered police to release Bibi from jail. However, at the time, she accepted the police allegation that Braude had deliberately provoked Palestinians by deviating from the path he was walking on and heading toward a Palestinian house, and therefore ordered that he remain in custody.
[ Back to the Article ]
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment