PARIS (JTA) — A Paris appeals court must review its acquittal of media watchdog Philippe Karsenty in the al-Dura Affair, France’s highest court ruled.
The court made the ruling Tuesday in the slander case involving a video report on the killing of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy, Mohammed al-Dura, in Gaza in 2000.
Karsenty has long claimed that France 2 television and the network’s Israel correspondent, Charles Enderlin, published a doctored video report showing the killing of al-Dura. The report, which said the boy was killed by Israeli fire in an exchange with Palestinian militants, caused riots in the region.
Enderlin and France 2 sued Karsenty for defamation following his claims, but Karsenty eventually was exonerated in 2008. In returning the case to the appeals court, France’s high court said the appeals court had overstepped its bounds in ordering France 2 to send it the rushes of the report, according to the French news agency AFP.
Israel initially took responsibility for the shooting of al-Dura, but a subsequent investigation by its military found that the bullets likely came from the Palestinian gunmen. The dispute remains deeply divisive.
