Iyad Halak, 32, was killed last year by Border Police who say they mistook him for a terrorist; he was shot a 2nd time on the ground, posing no threat, investigators say
A Border Police officer who shot and killed an autistic Palestinian man in Jerusalem’s Old City in May 2020 after mistaking him for a terrorist has been charged with reckless manslaughter, the Justice Ministry’s Police Internal Investigations Department announced on Thursday.
The indictment was filed Thursday against the officer, 20, who was not publicly named.
According to PIID, 32-year-old Iyad Halak aroused suspicion with unspecified unusual behavior during his walk to work in Jerusalem’s Old City on May 30, 2020. He was wearing a coronavirus face mask and black gloves at the time of the incident, which came amid the COVID-19 pandemic. A police officer monitoring the area for security threats announced that a “terrorist” was in the vicinity, setting off a chase by the officer and his Border Police commander.
During the pursuit, the two police officers called out to Halak in Hebrew and Arabic to stop and identify himself, but the special-needs Palestinian man, apparently terrified, continued to flee. The commander fired two bullets at Halak’s legs, missing him, according to the PIID.
Halak fled to an indoor sanitation facility, where a janitor, a Waqf worker, and a woman with whom he was previously acquainted were standing, the Justice Ministry unit said. Media reports have previously identified the woman as his caretaker, Warda Abu Hadid, and said she had been walking with him to his workplace at a Wadi Joz school.
The police officers entered the garbage room and the suspect then shot Halak in the lower abdomen, at which point he dropped to the ground, the PIID statement said.
The two officers then asked him, “Where is the gun?”
Halak “got up slightly, pointed at the woman he knew and murmured something,” the PIID statement said. The officers then directed the question at Abu Hadid. “What gun?” she replied.
“While she was responding, and although Iyad was on the ground, injured as a result of the first gunfire, didn’t have anything in his hands and did not do anything to justify it, the suspect shot him in the upper body, causing his death,” the statement said.
Abu Hadid described a slightly different scene to Israeli media in the aftermath of the shooting. “I’m with her, I’m with her!” Abu Hadid said Halak cried out on the ground after being shot for the first time.
In an account she gave to the online magazine Local Call, she described pleading for several minutes in the garbage room with police, telling them to check Halak’s identification for proof of his disabled status.
“Suddenly, they fired three bullets at him, in front of my eyes,” Abu Hadid said in an interview with Channel 13. “I shouted, ‘Don’t shoot him.’ They didn’t listen, they didn’t want to hear.”
If convicted on charges of reckless manslaughter, the officer could serve up to 12 years in prison.
The shooting officer’s commander, who participated in the chase and was present at the shooting, will not be charged.
Joint List leader MK Ayman Odeh called the reckless manslaughter charge “an infuriating and contemptible charge that enables the murder of any Palestinian who displeases a police officer or a soldier.”
“The end of the occupation will be justice for Iyad,” he added.
Halak’s family has previously criticized the proposed charges as not going far enough.
“They’ve destroyed our family,” sobbed Rana Halak, as she spoke to reporters after her meeting with prosecutors in Jerusalem. “Tell me, how did an autistic boy ever harm anyone?”
Despite numerous cameras visible at the scene, there was no video evidence either of the chase or of the shooting itself, PIID has said.
“The shooting incident took place inside a compound belonging to the Jerusalem municipality and administered by a private cleaning firm. The cameras within were not connected to electricity… which is why there is no documentation of the shooting incident itself,” PIID said last year.
“The deceased did not pose any danger to police and civilians at the scene, the police officer did not fire in accordance with well-known police procedures, and nor did he utilize a more proportionate alternative,” PIID said.
On the other hand, investigators also took into account the complex and tense atmosphere of the Old City, as well as the fact that the officers had received immediate reports of a terrorist in the area.
As reported by The Times of Israel