Now that charges appear imminent in the murder of a Palestinian teen, an Israeli judge has lifted the gag order on details of the attack and the suspects.
The three individuals held in the kidnapping and killing of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir on July 2 admitted they were responsible for the murder, done in retaliation for the killing of three Israeli teens, and reenacted how they carried out the crime, according to police spokesperson Mickey Rosenfeld
The three suspects — including a 30-year-old and two minors, all of whom are related — made their first court appearance in Jerusalem on Monday, during which time the judge lifted the gag order (with the exception of the suspects’ names and any details that would identify them).
They will remain in custody until their next court appearance on Friday, when an indictment is likely.
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Early results from an autopsy on Abu Khdeir’s body indicated he suffered a head injury before being burned alive. He was abducted from outside a store in his East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Shoafat.
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“On July 2, 2014, the three suspects decided together to kidnap and murder an Arab. They searched for a victim in several Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, finally arriving in Shoafat. When they saw that the teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir was alone, they seized him, forced him into their car, beat and stunned him and took him to the Jerusalem Forest. There they threw him out of the car, poured gasoline on him, set him on fire and fled,” Haaretz reported, quoting an investigator’s statement.
Although the suspects chose Abu Khdeir at random, they possessed plastic restraints and gasoline, according to the publication.
The boy’s death set off days of violent protests in Arab areas of Jerusalem and northern Israel.
The details of the case released Monday also indicate Abu Khdeir’s death was the suspects’ second attempt at exacting revenge for the murders of 19-year-old Eyal Yifrah and 16-year-olds Gilad Shaar and Naftali Fraenkel—the three Israeli students who were kidnapped, while hitchhiking home from a religious school in a West Bank settlement on June 12, and shot to death.
Israeli police have yet to arrest the main suspects in the murders of Fraenkel, Shaar and Yifrah, but believe two Palestinian men from Hebron, who have links to Hamas, are responsible.
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The investigation revealed two of the three suspects in Abu Khdeir’s murder tried to kidnap an nine-year-old Palestinian boy the previous night, but were chased off by the boy’s mother, The Times of Israel reported.
Two of the suspects also told police they set fire to a Palestinian-owned store a month before the killing, Haaretz reported.
Police immediately took into consideration the possibility of Abu Khdeir’s being a “nationalist” crime, organizing two secondary investigation units — one to determine a possible criminal motive and another to specifically examine if the killing was motivated by Jewish extremism — Haaretz said.
With files from The Associated Press
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