The Israeli police said on Wednesday that they have closed the investigation into the death of Palestinian minister Ziad Abu-Ein, citing a lack of evidence against the border police officer who attacked him, Arutz Sheva has reported.
According to the Police Internal Investigations Department, the case is being closed “without interrogating the policeman or requiring his testimony.” It noted that the official autopsy concluded that the minister died of a heart attack.
Abu-Ein died on 10 December, 2014, when an Israeli border police officer attacked him with his helmet and the butt of his gun during a peaceful demonstration in the Palestinian village of Turmusayya in the West Bank city of Ramallah. At the time, an autopsy carried out by Palestinian, Jordanian and Israeli doctors concluded that he died as a direct result of the attack, as well as the inhalation of tear gas.
Lawyer Emily Shefer from the Israeli rights group Yesh Din, representing the minister’s family, said that, at the very least, the border policeman should have been summoned for questioning.
The Israeli soldiers and officers who witnessed the incident testified during the investigation that the border police officer had used “unreasonable force,” reported Arutz Sheva. “It seems,” said Shefer, “that there is no desire to get to the truth of the matter.”
In response to the lawyer’s comments, a spokesperson for the internal investigations department said: “Policemen are authorised to use force and it is expected of them in many cases to use it. As such, Internal Investigations will not summon a policeman for investigation if there is not a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed.”