Israeli officers convicted of negligent homicide

An Israeli court on Monday convicted two police officers of negligent homicide, after they left an injured Palestinian man for dead at the side of a road in 2008, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported. Senior police officer Baruch Peretz had ordered a lower ranking policeman, Assaf Yakutieli, to throw Omar Abu Jariban out of a police vehicle onto the side of a West Bank road, a Jerusalem court heard. He died of dehydration and his body was discovered two days later. He was dressed in hospital pajamas, had no shoes, and was still connected to a urinary catheter at the time of the incident. Abu Jariban, who was originally from Gaza, was seriously injured after crashing a stolen car in 2008 and had spent two weeks in a medical center before being released into Israeli police custody. The officers responsible for Abu Jariban tried to admit him to the medical facility of an Israeli prison, but there were no available spaces. It was then that the officers decided to dump Abu Jariban at the side of a road near Ofer military base. He was in a state of confusion at the time and required medical attention, Haaretz said. "He was simply thrown to the dogs," Abu Jariban's brother, Muhammed, told Haaretz from Gaza. "No person with eyes on his face and compassion in his heart would have made the decision that the two made," the judge presiding over the case was quoted by Haaretz as saying. One of the police officers, Assaf Yakutieli, said that Abu Jariban had agreed to be left by the side of the road. The judge slammed his testimony as "unrealistic". The police officers will be sentenced at a later date.