Days of Palestine – Ramallah
A petition was submitted by Adalah Human Rights Center on behalf of the family of the martyr Musa Hassouna from the occupied city of Lod, after closing the investigation file in murdering their son by a settler’s bullet in the popular uprising during May 2021.
Adalah revealed that the investigation file was closed under political pressure and the intervention of authorities in the occupation police and inaction. Some “law enforcement” employees deliberately refused to do their job to close the file, according to the petition’s details.
According to the Arab48 website, the petition was submitted based on investigation materials obtained by Adalah, which showed that there is more than enough evidence to bring criminals to trial and even convict them of premeditated murder.
Among the investigation materials that were obtained, a videotape of a conversation between investigators, which is a personal conversation in an investigation room without suspects, shows the political pressure on the police by the Minister of Internal Security, Amir Ohana, to close the file as soon as possible.
In the video, an investigator appears, saying that “the director of the Ballistics Testing Laboratory, Gail Ackerman, who is from Lydda, tells me that this diagnosis costs a lot of money and is currently at the bottom of the priority list, and does not intend to progress in the examination process.”
She added that the Ballistics Laboratory advised her to release the suspects and to suffice with their testimonies and that it would not test bullets unless an indictment was submitted.
The other interrogator replied, “Let her say this to the minister, who calls every 10 minutes to ask about the file!”
The investigation file against 4 suspects was closed on October 21, 2021, and the family was informed of this on the grounds that there was no guilt.
The file against the fifth suspect was also closed on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence to prove the charge of shooting that caused Hassouna’s death.
The Public Prosecution also stated that the suspects claimed self-defense, and their allegations were accepted, and as a result, the files were closed.
According to the Adalah Center, it should be noted the double standards practiced by the Israeli police between Jewish suspects and Arab suspects, who were not allowed to receive advice from the same lawyer when they were arrested during the popular uprising in May 2021.
They added that an Israeli suspect was also summoned to testify after more than 25 one day after the crime, the police did not treat him as a suspect despite his confession of taking part in the possession of a weapon and the shooting, and despite the apparent contradiction in his statement, the police released him and did not try to find out the truth.
The investigation materials obtained by Adalah, specifically the written statements of the five suspects, completely refute the pretext of self-defense, according to which the file was closed.
They stated that settlers were present at the crime scene after calls made through WhatsApp groups, with the aim of holding a flags march.
Israelis celebrate the so-called “Quds Day”, and they agreed among themselves to raise the Israeli flags with the aim of provoking the Arabs along the al-Zohoor roundabout, which is a friction area separating the Arab residents and settlers, some of whom were armed, and anticipating the possibility of friction with the Arab citizens.
Hassouna was martyred on May 10, 2021, during the popular uprising, after he was shot by armed settlers from close range towards a group of Arab youths, without posing any danger to their lives, including the martyr Musa Hassouna, who was shot in the heart and was killed instantly while others were hit by two bullets.
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