An Israeli court has acquitted a police officer of recklessly killing an unarmed autistic Palestinian man in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Iyad Halak, 32, was shot dead in May 2020 after an encounter with police in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem.
The officer standing trial for reckless homicide “made an honest mistake thinking he was dealing with an armed terrorist who posed a real danger”, Jerusalem district court said, noting that the officer had expressed remorse for his error.
Halak had aroused the suspicion of officers as he milled close to a border police position near Jerusalem’s Old City, the court said in its decision. The officers approached Halak and yelled at him to stop, and Halak ran away, it said.
The defendant joined the chase and another officer shot towards Halak’s legs but missed, the court said. Halak entered an alley where the defendant shot and hit him in the leg. Halak then stood up and pointed at a woman he knew, and he was fatally shot in the chest.
Halak’s family said he had the mental age of an eight-year-old, and witnesses said Halak panicked after being shouted at by police.
The officer was charged in June 2021, after the justice ministry said the previous October that he had not followed police rules for opening fire and that Halak had “posed no danger to police or civilians at the scene”.
At the time, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, called Halak’s death a “war crime” and an “execution”, while the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, described it as a “tragedy”.
His funeral drew thousands of mourners, while online the hashtag #PalestinianLivesMatter echoed the fury of mass protests against police violence and racism in the US.
Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
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