Palestinian rights group: Israeli Police Murder Mahmoud Salah in Cold Blood
[truth: suicide bomber killed
while trying to detonate]

[IMRA: Lie in the service of the movement. A frequent element in the
propaganda battle against Israel has been the use of "testimony" of Arab
"witnesses" of various Israeli "atrocities". When such "testimony" has been
subject to the test of courtroom cross examination it has frequently turned
out that the "witness" was actually reporting hearsay as if he himself had
been on the scene - or embellishing the story to meet propaganda needs. In
the case of the item below one can see the truth sneaking out from time to
time. The Israel Police response appear below]

Palestinian rights group: Israeli Police Murder Mahmoud Salah in Cold Blood

March 11, 2002

Last Friday afternoon, 8 March 2002, 22-year-old Mahmoud Salah from Beit
Wazan near Nablus was shot in the head by Israeli police in Beit Hanina,
a Palestinian neighborhood in occupied east Jerusalem. After being shot
the young man was left to bleed to death. The press (the Arabic
electronic page of the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot) reported that police
officers at the scene had acted under direct instructions of Jerusalem
Police chief Mickey Levy.

In order to justify the killing, Israeli police sources claimed that
Mahmoud Salah had resisted arrest and stopped a sapper from defusing
explosives. In its Arabic internet edition, Yediot Ahronot reported as
follows:

Upon arrival of police officers including police chief Mickey Levy, and
when the sapper stated that he could not control the Palestinian and that
there was a threat that an explosive device might blow up, Mickey Levy
ordered the killing of the Palestinian. A police officer drew his gun and
shot the Palestinian in the head at close range. A high-ranking police
officer said that the killing was unavoidable "since there was a threat
to the police officers".

However, accounts by eyewitnesses contradict the version given by the
Israeli police. According to France Press, 12 Palestinians witnessed the
incident from their homes. They asserted that Mahmoud Salah was
handcuffed when he was killed. An eyewitness reported to LAW as follows:

On Friday, 8 March 2002, at 4 p.m., I heard noises outside the building
where I live, which is Project 3 of the Nusseibeh Buildings in Beit
Hanina. I looked out of the window that overlooks the road in front of
the building; the road is only about 8 meters away. I saw how a military
jeep stopped the two men. One of them was a guy I know; his name is
Randy Audi; he is from Beit Hanina. I did not know the other man but I
later learnt that his name was Mahmoud Salah.

Randy was taken at 4.15 p.m. in a military jeep to an unknown
destination. Mahmoud was forced to lie flat on his face and had his hands
cuffed behind his back. The special [police] unit tore down Mahmoud's
clothes. He was wearing a light navy blue jacket and a yellow shirt and a
dark yellow cotton pair of pants.

I didn't see any bags with Mahmoud as Israelis claim. I heard how he was
questioned about his name and the place of residence. I understood that
he was from Nablus and that his name was Mahmoud. There were three
members of the special [police] unit surrounding the guy on the ground;
they were dressed in dark gray. One of them placed his foot on the guy's
head and another was holding his feet and a third was sitting on his
knees pointing a gun at him from a distance of approximately 1.5 -2
meters.

At around 4.30 p.m., the third member shot the guy eight or nine times in
the head. Then they left the place and left the guy bleeding. The guy was
trying to move and to stand up. At around 5.15 p.m. he stopped moving.

At around 5.20 p.m. Israeli police brought a robot, which drew a black
belt. The strange thing is that I did not see that belt when the police
tore down the guy's clothes before he was killed.

I would like to point out that the soldiers imposed a curfew on the
neighborhood and said several times that [people] must not look out of
the windows. However, we kept looking out of the windows. When the corps
was turned, the right side of the head was open due to the shots. The
victim's fingerprints were then taken and photos of the corps were taken.
An Israeli ambulance took the victim away from the scene of the incident.

LAW is extremely concerned about eyewitness reports indicating that the
killing of Mahmoud Salah was in fact an extra judicial execution and
calls for an immediate, through and impartial investigation into the
circumstances of his death.

LAW believes that the implementation of policies which amount to war
crimes, such as Israel's policy of state assassinations, as well as the
lack of investigations into killings by the security forces and the
failure to prosecute those responsible for unlawful killings has created
a climate of appalling disrespect for the right to life, which is one of
the most fundamental human rights.

LAW believes that respect for human rights and humanitarian law is one of
the basic conditions for lasting peace and stability in the region, and
that any attempts to negotiate rights away and to design solutions, which
are based on "political realities" but not on human rights and
international law, are doomed to fail, as did the Oslo Process.

LAW therefore calls on the international community to stop subordinating
their political and economic interests to their moral and legal
obligations and to take effective measures in order to protect the rights
and lives of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
including East Jerusalem.

LAW calls on the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention
to comply with their obligations to ensure respect for the Convention.

In view of Israel's ongoing and escalating violations of humanitarian law
and human rights, LAW calls on the European Union, which is a vital
trading partner for Israel, to suspend its Association Agreement with
Israel as a means of pressuring Israel into compliance with basic norms
of international law.

####

ISRAEL POLICE STATEMENT ON 8.March.2002 INCIDENT
(Communicated by the Israel Police National Foreign Press Spokesman)

Monday, March 11, 2002

On Friday, 8.March.2002, a suicide-bomber on his way to perpetrate a terror
attack in Jerusalem was apprehended by police while wearing a large
explosive device on his chest and stomach area. He was held on the
ground, face down, while a bomb disposal expert attempted to dismantle
the explosive device. This lasted a number of minutes. During this
time, the suicide-bomber attempted several times to detonate the bomb by
rubbing his chest against the ground in the hope of activating the
detonation switch. In order to prevent the murder of the policemen and
the bomb disposal officer, the suicide-bomber was shot and killed by
police. The bomb was dismantled with the aid of a bomb disposal robot.

The police have an investigative interest in apprehending
suicide-bombers alive in order to ascertain information that may assist
in preventing further terrorist attacks, as witnessed a day earlier with
the arrest of a suicide-bomber in Jerusalem's Emek Refaim neighborhood.