Palestinian driver shot by Israeli police
Palestine-Israel, Local, 4/7/1998

It took the family of Naji Mohammed Salaymeh hours of waiting outside Abu Kabir forensic hospital in Jaffa to receive the body of their son. Naji was shot dead Monday night by Israeli police who claimed he was driving a stolen car and refused to stop despite persistent calls from them to do so. The family wanted to hold the funeral immediately after they received the body, but the police had asked the hospital to delay handing over Naji's body until after police reinforcements are sent to the village of Ziayyem on the eastern outskirts of East Jerusalem where the Salaymeh family lives.

Naji's body was taken to the hospital for a postmortem examination after his family argued the police had no justification to open fire and kill him. A court decision on Tuesday morning allowed Abu Kabir Forensic Laboratory in Jaffa to conduct the postmortem on Salaymeh's body to find out how he was killed.

The police version stated that policemen shot him dead during a car pursuit. The police said Salaymeh ignored persistent calls to stop the car he was driving north of Jerusalem. He ran away, drove against traffic rules and hit a number of cars before he was shot and brought to a halt, said the police statement. Another young person who was with Salaymeh in the car managed to escape and made his way towards Ramallah, the police said.

After the shooting, Palestinians living in the area took to the streets and pelted Israeli troops with stones, lightly injuring the Jerusalem district police commander, Yair Yitzhaki. Yitzhaki said it was still unclear what the purpose of the youth¹s journey was, but added that there has always been the possibility that the two might have been involved in what he called "terror activities" against Israel.

A few hours after the shooting, Israeli police spotted one car in which they found two pistols, one real and one plastic. The two passengers were arrested and on Tuesday morning were remanded in custody for ten days by a Jerusalem magistrate court. The police could not establish if the two incidents were related but police sources noted there has been lately a maximum state of alert among the police and army following the assassination of Hamas top bomb maker Mohyiddin Sharif in Ramallah almost two weeks ago.

Previous Stories:
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  Report: Hundreds of buildings destroyed in 1997   (3/28/1998)
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