PA Police Face Charges for Ramallah Lynchings
A Palestinian policeman was to be charged by an Israeli military court on Monday with intentional manslaughter for his part in the lynching of two IDF reservists in Ramallah last October.
Rayed Mahmoud Jamil Sheik, 26, of Gaza was to appear in Beit El Military Court for his role in the Ramallah lynchings. A second Palestinian is also facing charges of kicking and beating the two Israeli reservists. They are the first of a number of suspects accused of participating in the lynching of Cpl. Vadim Novesche and Sgt.-Maj. Yosef Avrahami who were captured by the IDF and General Security Service.
Sheik was captured last October 26. According to his charge sheet released to the press, he was serving at the Ramallah police station on the day of the lynching and was on guard duty at the time of the tragedy. The sheet reported that he, along with a number of other Palestinians, saw the car with yellow Israeli plates and a man inside with an IDF uniform approaching, and signaled the vehicle to halt at the side of the road. Sheik then ordered the IDF soldiers to get out.
Speaking Hebrew, Sheik reportedly asked the soldiers what they were doing in Ramallah and they told him they had gotten lost. Sheik translated this for his officer. With guns pointed at their heads, the two were then ordered into the station. On the way, another Palestinian policeman arrived and hit Avrahami in the chest. Once inside, the accused and the other policemen handed them over to the commander, with a rank equivalent to colonel. They then went outside to prevent a raging crowd returning from a funeral from entering the station, the charge sheet said. But after a while, Sheik joined the mob and went to the room where the two were held, pausing along the way to pick up an iron pipe about 40 cm. long.
“The accused approached Cpl. Vadim Novesche who was standing and struck him four or five times in the head and in the rest of his body until he started bleeding and moaning,” the charge sheet said. Other Palestinian policemen and officers were in the room at the time. With his hands covered in blood, the accused left the room to wash. After he saw Novesche tossed from the second-floor window, he again beat him. After that, he and the other policemen involved fled back inside the station, where the commander told them that if they were questioned, they should say that it was civilians who killed the soldiers.
Used with Permission from International Christian Embassy Jerusalem.