Ramallah: The family of a Palestinian teenager who was kidnapped and burnt to death by Jewish colonists in 2014 and who has had his name added to a commemorative memorial has said it would have preferred to have seen the killers brought to justice.
Israel decided to add Mohammad Hussain Abu Khudair’s name to the “Victims of Acts of Terror” memorial at Occupied Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl.
Mohammad was a 16 year old from the Shuafat neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem. An organisation representing Jewish families who have lost members in hostile acts threatened to remove Mohammad’s name from the list of victims if the Israelis insisted on adding it.
In the aftermath of the murder of three Israeli colonists in 2014, Abu Khudair was abducted and burnt alive in a forest. Thirty-year-old Yosef Ben-David and two minors were arrested.
According to Hussain Abu Khudair, Mohammad’s father, the Israeli move to add Mohammad’s name to the list of the victims is an attempt to enhance its image internationally and present the Israeli regime as a democratic state.
“The last thing we want to see is a play in court, which is what seems to be happening,” he told Gulf News, adding that the accused had confessed in detail to the crime but then suddenly changed their minds and denied all charges. “Putting Mohammad’s name on the list of victims does not change the racist and discriminatory nature of the Israeli regime,” he said.
He said that in addition to the confessions, several pieces of evidence were available, but the Israeli judicial system was reviewing the case in a slow and worrying fashion. “Had it been a Palestinian convict the Israeli courts would have sentenced him in just no time, but the colonists have been appearing in court for the past nine months across 12 court hearings,” he said.
The Israeli authorities are trying to present the killers as mentally unstable and clear them of charges or to reduce the penalty to the minimum, Mohammad’s father said. “Now the Israeli authorities [the Israeli Defence Ministry] have decided to add Mohammad’s name to the list of the victims but at the time Mohammad was mercilessly murdered, a big portrait was put on the wall of our house and we then received an official warning in writing from the Israeli police to remove the picture with immediate effect. The letter advised that if we failed to do that, we would be subject to a 2,000 shekel [Dh1,856] daily fine.”
