31Dec03-Peter Enav-Israeli soldier arrested for shooting British activist
PETER ENAV, Associated Press Writer Wednesday, December 31, 2003
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(12-31) 17:03 PST JERUSALEM (AP) --
An Israeli soldier has been arrested for shooting and critically wounding a British man in April in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military said Wednesday.
Tom Hurndall, a 22-year-old university student, was shot in the head while with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a pro-Palestinian group whose activists volunteer to serve as buffers between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians. Witnesses said he was shot as he tried to help children out of the path of an Israeli tank in Rafah, a Palestinian refugee camp.
Hurndall was transported to London in a vegetative state and is still on life support. On Oct. 29, Carl Arrindell, a family spokesman, said doctors believed "the quality of life is so low there is a question as to whether it is right to keep him (on life support) for any protracted period of time."
An Israeli military spokeswoman said the Israeli soldier was arrested Tuesday, and a military court ordered him to remain in custody. He was not identified.
The Israeli military said in a statement that the soldier initially claimed Hurndall had been holding a pistol, but later admitted he was unarmed. The military police are still investigating the case, and the miliary prosecutor had not yet decided whether to charge the soldier, the statement said.
Britain welcomed the arrest. "We attach great importance to seeking an outcome that will be satisfactory for Tom's family," the Foreign Office said.
Arrindell also expressed satisfaction with the development.
"We are delighted that the military police inquiry found it necessary to question the legitimacy" of the soldier's initial claim and "that this has eventually lead to his confession that his initial statement was false that that he had indeed shot at an unarmed person," he said.
However, Hurndall's mother, Jocelyn, had doubts. "I remain skeptical as to the outcome of the military police inquiry," she told Sky News, "but I'm hopeful this is the first step towards the truth."
Israeli officials have denounced ISM as agitators who are putting their lives at risk in a war situation. On March 16, an American member of ISM was killed when she was run over by a military bulldozer in the Gaza Strip, near where Hurndall was shot. Israeli authorities have arrested and deported a number of members of the group.
In 39 months of Israeli-Palestinian violence, the Israeli military has arrested only a handful of soldiers for harming Palestinians or foreigners.
sfgate.com |
