Ariel pastor troubled by lack of police progress over Purim parcel bomb that wounded his son

By YAAKOV LAPPIN
An Ariel Christian pastor whose son, Ami, was badly wounded in a parcel bomb disguised as a Purim package expressed exasperation this week over the lack of progress made by the police investigation into the attack. David Ortiz said his son, 16, "was doing much better" since the bombing in March, adding that he would soon begin a rehabilitation program at the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer aimed at regaining movement of his fingers. "He faces two more operations. Slowly they're putting him back together," Ortiz said. "He's able to get up and hop to the bathroom," he added. But the police's failure to arrest any suspects has caused Ortiz and his family to feel "very fearful," he said. "In a month and a half [since the bombing], nothing has been fixed," he said, describing an "air of uncertainty." A Judea and Samaria Police spokesman said a media ban was in place over the investigation, preventing him from responding further. Yossi Graiber, an attorney representing the family, said he was "very concerned that no suspects whatsoever have been arrested. The Ortiz family is asking itself, how can there be no arrests, in light of the very clear evidence held by police? I can't expand on this point because of the media ban." Graiber added that "the family now wonders whether the slow police investigation is a direct continuation of its lack of interference in the persecution of members of the [messianic] community in the past." Shortly after the attack in March, Ortiz told The Jerusalem Post he believed police were leaning toward the theory that a Jewish anti-missionary activist was involved. "They [the police], as far as I understand, do not suspect Palestinian terrorism. They suspect a Jewish anti-missionary motive," Ortiz said by phone from his Ariel home, minutes after returning from the hospital. Rabbi Dov Lifshitz, chairman of the Yad L'Achim anti-missionary organization, said he doubted that Jews were behind the bombing. "Someone who thinks logically would not do this. It just harms the struggle. I'm sure this is not connected to the anti-missionary cause," Lifshitz told the Post. If the culprit is Jewish, the bomber "is either crazy or does not understand the struggle," Lifshitz added.