JERUSALEM (JTA) — Three people arrested in connection with the murder of an eastern Jerusalem teen, Mohammed Khdeir, have been released to house arrest after police concluded they did not participate in the killing.
The three were released Thursday by the Petach Tikvah Magistrate’s Court.
The other three suspects still in custody reportedly confessed to the murder and reenacted it in the Jerusalem forest.
Khdeir was kidnapped from eastern Jerusalem on July 2 in the hours following the funeral of three Israeli teens who had been kidnapped and murdered 19 days earlier. His burned body was found hours later in the forest in what is suspected to be a revenge killing.
The suspects still in custody were permitted to see their lawyers for the first time on Thursday, Haaretz reported, after being banned from seeing them at the request of the Shin Bet as the security service investigated the case. One is suspected of driving the car that kidnapped Khdeir, according to Ynet, and the other two are 16 years old.
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