Autopsy: Issawiya man was shot in the back; 2 firebombs thrown at hospital.
By ETGAR LEFKOVITSisawiya funeral 298(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
A Justice Ministry investigation into the fatal police shooting of a JerusalemArab during a routine arrest operation which turned violent and which spurred a night of Arab rioting has determined that the shooting was not justified, officials said Thursday.
The 32-year-old man killed in the incident, Samir Rivhi Da'ari, was buried Thursday afternoon in Jerusalem.
After his funeral, two firebombs were hurled at the back entrance of Hadassah University Hospital at Mount Scopus on Thursday night, police said.
There were no injuries or damage reported in the evening attack, and the explosives detonated harmlessly on the street.
No arrests were immediately made after the violence, and police fired teargas to disperse the assailants.
Police were on heightened alert in the area following the rioting which broke out in the neighborhood Wednesday night after a routine police arrest of a suspected Palestinian car thief near The Hebrew University of Jerusalem at Mount Scopus Wednesday night turned violent when an Arab driver from the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya tried to run over a policeman after the arrest, and police shot dead an Arab passenger in the car.
According to police, after the suspect was arrested several dozen villagers gathered at the scene, and tried to free the detainee, attempting to drag his car towards the village. Then a private van driven by an Arab motorist made a U-turn and tried to run over the policemen, hitting a policeman with an open door of the vehicle, police said.
At this point, the policeman opened fire on the vehicle, fatally injuring the passenger in the front seat of the car, the brother of the suspected car thief.
The seriously wounded man was rushed to Hadassah Hospital but died shortly afterwards on the operating table in the hospital's emergency room.
Arab villagers and family members said Thursday that the killing was unjustified. Da'ari is survived by his wife and two children.
An autopsy carried out on the body Thursday at the Abu Kabir forensic institute determined that the victim was shot in the back, with the bullet exiting his body through his heart, calling into question the police version of events, officials said.
Channel 2 news reported Thursday night that the border policeman who carried out the shooting will be indicted.
The policemen involved in the incident were summoned Thursday to the justice ministry's police investigations department for questioning.
After the shooting, scores of Arab residents from the village, known as a hotbed of militancy in the city, tried to storm the entrance to Hadassah University Hospital at Mount Scopus, and also set a car on fire, prompting police to bar students from The Hebrew University from exiting the campus in a rare safety measure.
A large contingent of police forces entered the village Wednesday night in an arrest sweep, with the sound of stun grenades and the crackle of tear gas heard at the nearby university.
Several policemen were lightly injured in the clashes, while several cars were damaged in the rioting.
