Tag: Act of War

Israel to Reinvestigate the Shooting of US Activist Tristan Anderson

30 June 2010

The Israeli District Attorney announced last week that the police will revisit its investigation into the shooting of American activist, Tristan Anderson, who was critically injured by a high velocity tear gas projectile that was shot directly at him by an Israeli Border Police officer during an anti-Wall protest in the West Bank village of Ni’ilin on March 13th, 2009.

The case was closed earlier this year on grounds of “lack of wrongdoing”, and will now be reopened following an appeal filed on behalf of Anderson’s family by attorneys Michael Sfard and Ido Tamari. The appeal, which pointed out grave flaws and negligence in the original investigation, was based on an independent investigation, held parallel to the one the police conducted. It shows clearly that the police decided to close the case despite the fact that the investigating team had never visited the scene of the shooting, and as a result questioned officers who had nothing to do with Anderson’s shooting and, in fact, could have had nothing to do with the shooting, as there was no direct line of fire between where they were positioned and were Anderson was shot.

A second Border Police crew, which was located in the area where Anderson was shot from according to all civilian eye witnesses, was never questioned at all. The force’s commanders, who carry responsibility for the shooting were also not held accountable.

View a presentation explaining the ills of the police investigation here.

The decision to re-launch the investigation following the appeal is, in effect, an acceptance of Anderson’s family’s claims that the investigation which cleared the Border Police officers from responsibility to their son’s critical injury was fundamentally flawed and negligent.

Attorney Michael Sfard: “With this kind of negligence, it is no wonder that the world does not trust Israeli investigations. Our own independent investigation was easily able to show, despite our meager resources, that the shooting was done directly at Anderson and with absolutely no justification. We will not rest until the shooter is brought to justice”.

Nancy Anderson, Tristan’s mother: “We expect someone to finally take responsibility for our son’s shooting. It is unimaginable to us that soldiers will shoot unarmed civilians whose sole crime was to demonstrate, and that no one will be held accountable. The re-launching of the investigation, so we hope, is a much needed first step towards justice for us and for our son.”

Anderson left Israel and returned to the USA with his family at the beginning of the month, after almost a year and a half of hospitalization in Tel Hashomer hospital in Tel Aviv. His condition remains serious as he suffered irreversible brain damage as a result of the shooting.

Family Appeals Decision to Close Investigation on Shooting of US Citizen Tristan Anderson

12 March 2010

This week the parents of Tristan Anderson filed an appeal on the decision to close the investigation concerning their son’s injury.– The 38 year-old American was critically injured by a high velocity tear gas projectile shot by Israeli Border Police in the West Bank village of Nili’in on March 13, 2009. The basic grounds for the appeal include undeniable negligence in the investigation. This negligence particularly involves two critical errors in the investigation conducted by the Investigative unit of the SJ District (West Bank) Israeli Police Force:

Mistaken identity: There were several Border Police squads in Nili’in at the time of Tristan’s injury, but only one of them was interviewed by investigators. A thorough examination of the facts shows that the squad interviewed was the wrong one.

No field visit: The investigation team did not visit the scene of the incident or nearby viewpoints from which it would have been possible to understand distances and positions described by eyewitnesses to the incident.

On the day of Tristan’s injury, there were several police squads in Nili’in – one stationed at a position known as “Antenna Hill” and another positioned closer to the village center. Since the squad stationed at Antenna Hill reported injuring a person, this squad was questioned regarding Tristan Anderson. However, it is now clear that there was more than one injury on March 13, 2009 – with one such injury having been reported by the squad stationed on Antenna Hill. These police officers report having hit a person in a completely different location and with an entirely different description than that of Tristan. For example, the police officers reported hitting a stone thrower whose face was covered, whereas several eyewitnesses attest to the fact that Tristan’s face was not covered at all on that day and that he did not throw stones. Furthermore, eyewitnesses to Tristan’s injury report that the tear gas canister came from a different direction than Antenna Hill, the same area in which the second squad was stationed. It is clear that these mistakes stem from the fact that investigators never visited the scene of the incident.

Attorney Michael Sfard: The astonishing negligence of this investigation and of the prosecutorial team that monitored its outcome is unacceptable, but it epitomizes Israel’s culture of impunity. Tristan’s case is actually not rare; it represents hundreds of other cases of Palestinian victims whose investigations have also failed.

One year after his shooting, Anderson is still hospitalized in Tel Hashomer hospital, with severe permanent brain damage of a yet uncertain degree. The severity of his condition still does not allow his transfer back home to the US.

To view a summary of the appeal in English, click here

Border Control / Biden and the bulldozer

Akiva Eldar | Ha’aretz

9 March 2010

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who arrived in Israel yesterday, didn’t look for camels among the cars on the road from Ben-Gurion International Airport to Jerusalem. In a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing held two years ago for the United States Ambassador to Israel, James Cunningham, Biden heard that the Israelis even know how to ride bulldozers.

Then a senator from Delaware, who chaired the committee, Biden asked for a detailed report on the affair of American peace activist Rachel Corrie, who was run over and killed by the treads of an Israeli bulldozer.

If Biden schedules a meeting with Corrie’s parents here, the Israeli Information and Diaspora Ministry will have to work overtime. The parents, who arrived in advance of the scheduled deliberations on their suit against the state of Israel, will tell him that his hosts are continuing to deny any responsibility for their daughter’s death.

Rachel was a 23-year-old student run over by a 64-ton bulldozer in March, 2003, when she and others from the International Solidarity Movement tried to use their bodies to stop the demolition of a house in Rafah.

At the Senate hearing, Cunningham spoke about the Israel authorities’ refusal to open a thorough investigation into the affair and not rest content with an internal report.

Cunningham detailed numerous written and oral requests to top people in the Israeli government by senior people in the American administration and his predecessor at the embassy. In reply to Biden’s question, Cunningham undertook to stand by the Corrie family in the demand for a credible investigation of the tragic event. Tomorrow the witness stage in the Corrie family’s suit will open at the Haifa District Court. Facing the family and friends will be representatives of the state who are demanding the suit be withdrawn. They claim Corrie was killed in “an act of war,” during the course of an armed conflict in a closed military zone. Therefore, even if it is proved there was use of excessive force as well as gross negligence – the state is totally exempt from liability. The defense is giving legal cover to the bulldozer operator and the soldiers who secured him, on the grounds it was a sovereign “act of state.” In other words: Corrie was responsible for her own death.

Apparently Israel takes responsibility for the deaths of foreign civilians only when threatened. For more than five years legal wrangling dragged on between the state and the family of British television filmmaker James Miller, who was shot and killed in Rafah. With respect to that incident too, which took place two months after Corrie was killed, the state hid behind the excuse of “an act of war.” In this case too questions arose as to the credibility of the Investigative Military Police report and the top political level in London urged the government of Israel to compensate the widow and the orphans. The case was closed (with the payment of more than 1 million pounds Sterling in compensation) after the British threatened to issue an official extradition request for the Israeli soldiers who shot the cameraman.

The American media have long ceased to follow American VIPs who come to give artificial respiration to “the peace process.” Perhaps the White House reporters who are accompanying Biden will evince interest in the Corrie case.