JERUSALEM: Israeli prosecutors indicted three Jews yesterday over the abduction and murder of a Palestinian teenager who was burned to death this month, the justice ministry said.
The identity of those charged was not disclosed by the ministry, which simply stated that one was a 29-year-old from the West Bank settlement of Adam.
The others were 16-year-olds, one from Jerusalem and the other from Beit Shemesh, an Israeli town west of Jerusalem. All were from the same family.
Mohammed Abu Khder, 16, was kidnapped from east Jerusalem on July 2 and burned to death in a suspected revenge attack for the abduction and killing of three Israeli teenagers.
Israel’s defence ministry announced in a statement it had decided to recognise Abu Khudair as a victim of “terrorism” — a term rarely used in Israel for Palestinian victims of violence.
The Israelis face separate charges over the attempted kidnapping of a seven-year-old Palestinian from the east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Beit Hanina, as well as alleged arson attacks on Palestinian-owned cars.
Two of them are also accused of setting alight a Palestinian shop in the town of Izmeh, a West Bank village near Israel, the justice ministry said in a statement.
An Israeli government legal adviser quoted in the media denounced the attacks as “shocking acts of racism against innocent people”.
The trio had decided to kill an Arab, and equipped themselves with cable ties, petrol and other materials, and had randomly chosen Abu Khder as their victim.
On July 1, the suspects had tried to kidnap a child elsewhere in east Jerusalem, but were thwarted by the youth’s mother.
AFP
