The NGO Adalah has filed an appeal on behalf of the parents of Ahmed Abu Shaaban, against the decision of the Police Investigations Department (PID) to close, on the grounds of absence of a crime, its investigation into the circumstances of their son’s death. On October 15, 2015, while he was at the Central Bus Station in Jerusalem, Abu Shaaban was shot to death by an Israeli police officer. According to police reports, the veracity of which is entirely rejected by Abu Shaaban’s family, the deceased was shot after being suspected of stabbing a woman in the vicinity. A video of the shooting incident (see link below) reveals that Abu Shaaban was shot after he was lying prone on the ground, was disabled and posed no danger when a police officer standing 2-3 meters from him shot him at least twice, killing him.

The late Ahmed Abu Shaaban (Photo: Adalah)

Attorney Aram Mahameed argued during his appeal that the PID’s treatment of portfolio suffers from serious investigative lapses. Initially, the PID announced that the case was being closed because “no factual basis was established for a criminal offense having been committed by one of the police officers at the event,” but subsequently it turned out that there had been absolutely no investigative activity into the incident. In response to Adalah’s demand to receive the investigation material for the case in order to consider filing an appeal against its being closed, the PID said that “there is no material in our file other than the complaint received by our department which was submitted by your organization.”

Atty. Mahameed noted in this context that “despite the clear visual documentation in the case of the deceased, no investigative action was taken by PID, and this despite the fact that several questions remain without adequate answers. For example, the PID did not see fit to have the body autopsied, nor have the body examined by means of an MRI or CT scan, nor to interrogate the officers who were at the scene, nor examine the operational of reports of the police. Particularly puzzling was the decision by the police not to gather testimony from passersby and civilians who were present at the event. The police were supposed to gather evidence but apparently didn’t do so, and the PID didn’t, on its part, see fit to correct this defect, despite the great contribution that could have been made by performing this basic investigative action.”

In addition, Atty. Mahameed stated that there is grave concern that the PID did not even check whether the shooting was in violation of the rules of engagement: “The circumstances of the shooting as described above indicate that that, at the time of the shooting, the deceased did not constitute a threat to the life of any of the security personnel or to of anyone else. The fact that the deceased was shot several times after he was lying prone on the ground, points to shooting without justification. In this case the police had at their disposal other options that the law obliges them to take, and which any reasonable police officer should obey under similar circumstances, which would spare the unfortunate, to say the least, results of this case. It should be emphasized, again, that there was absolutely no place for the use of lethal force as that which occurred.”

Related:

Video clip showing shooting to death of incapacitated Ahmed Abu Shaaban by Israeli police officer