Police: Fatal West Bank crash caused by rock throwing
The police and army traded accusations on Sunday over who was responsible for issuing a statement attributing the accident in which a man and his infant son were killed near Kiryat Arba on Friday to excessive speed. Police later said the car that Kiryat Arba resident Asher Palmer was driving rolled over after Palestinians threw rocks at the vehicle.
...About 20 minutes after the car was found the Israel Defense Forces Spokesman's Office informed media outlets that soldiers stationed nearby had not seen any stone-throwing and that the incident was merely a road accident. That in itself was unusual, as the army doesn't usually investigate road accidents.
That evening the Israel Police announced that the car had flipped over after taking a turn too quickly. Yet initial findings at the site of the accident did not support this conclusion.
While the car did flip over while on a curve there were no skid marks on the road to indicate braking, which would be characteristic in such an accident.
Three rocks were found in the car, and one had blood on it. Palmer's pistol had been removed from the car.
The steering wheel bore signs of having been hit by a rock, and Palmer's face had a wound that would not normally ensue from an overturned car.
...Later Friday evening, police reviewed the incident with Col. Guy Hazut, commander of the IDF's Hebron Brigade, and concluded that the Palmers were probably killed in a terror attack.
...Police said a gash on Asher Palmer's face could have been caused by a rock thrown from a passing vehicle. Investigators believe that he lost control of the vehicle as a result, causing his car to run off the road, hit a wall and overturn.
On Sunday afternoon, when the minutes of the court proceedings were published, the police and the army issued a statement admitting that the incident was probably a terror attack.
Police officers said the army gave too much weight to the statements of the soldiers who found the car, while the army said it merely reported the soldiers' statements and that it was the Israel Police that invented the speeding claim.
At a meeting with GOC Central Command Avi Mizrahi on sunday, settlers were furious. "There's no other way to say this: The IDF didn't tell the truth," said Danny Dayan, chairman of the Yesha Council of settlements.
The truth is that all of the authorities didn't want an 'incident' to bother them at the height of the tensionb with the Pals. and the UN affair.
Oh. And they don't like Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria, too.
More:
Controversy and anger surrounds the incident, in that after the accident security services said there was suspicion that the accident may have been caused by stone-throwers, a statement that was later retracted, only to emerge again on Sunday. Across the settlements of Judea and Samaria, voices were claiming that security officials covered up the stone-throwing in order to prevent “price tag” actions by settlers on the same day that the Palestinians were presenting their statehood bid at the United Nations.
Details of the incident began to emerge on Sunday, after the family of Palmer, 25, reached an agreement with the state to allow for blood samples to be taken from his body and that of Yonatan, in order to determine the cause of death. Palmer's family had initially refused the state permission to conduct an autopsy on the bodies, and the state petitioned the Jerusalem Magistrates' Court against the family's decision. When the court refused the petition, the state immediately appealed the lower court's ruling directly in the High Court of Justice.
The High Court issued a temporary injunction delaying the Magistrates' Court ruling ahead of a hearing scheduled for Sunday, but the hearing was cut short after both sides reached an agreement that blood samples could be taken from the bodies.
Police Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said Sunday that “based on finding of the external autopsy, the main direction of the investigation is that he [Palmer] was hit by a stone which caused him to lose control of the vehicle.”
Rosenfeld added that police found the stone, but that they don’t know when it was thrown at the car and the investigation is still ongoing.
The IDF spokesperson’s office said Sunday evening that their findings have reached the conclusion that stones were not thrown at the car from the side of the road, but that findings that have turned up since then have raised the possibility that a stone was thrown at the vehicle from a passing car. They added that it is still under investigation.
Anger at the incident was palpable on the way to Kiryat Arba on Sunday, where traffic crawled to a half for several kilometers while clashes broke out between settler youth and Palestinians next to the Palestinian village of Beit Anoun. In addition, well over a hundred people took part in a protest held at the site of the accident on Sunday afternoon, before marching to Kiryat Arba.
Head of the Kiryat Arba local council Malachi Levinger said Sunday that “there must be an investigation into why the police changed their story within less than 48 hours. The rock-throwing, which is a growing phenomenon in recent days has become unbearable. We are demanding that security forces work to completely end this phenomenon which constitutes a mortal threat not only to human lives but also harms the honor of the state and its citizens.”
^
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment