Anti-Israel violence erupted during the funeral Saturday of Palestinian security suspect Mustafa Akawai, despite an autopsy report confirming that his death was not the result of torture by Israeli interrogators.
The report did not deter Palestinian activists from using the incident to gain maximum political mileage at home and abroad.
Akawai, an alleged member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was placed under administrative detention on Jan. 22 on suspicion of security offenses.
He died Feb. 4 at a military prison in Hebron. An Israel Defense Force physician attributed death to a heart attack.
The post-mortem, performed Friday by an Israeli coroner, was witnessed by an American forensic expert, Dr. Michael Baden, whose presence was requested by the Akawai family.
Baden, director of the New York State Department of Criminal Medicine, confirmed that a heart attack was the cause of death. Akawai, only 33, suffered severe arteriosclerosis, the autopsy found.
Justice Minister Dan Meridor promptly expressed satisfaction with the results. He said he was relieved, adding that it was important that the authorities who supervise interrogations make sure that “deviations” from acceptable practices are avoided.
But Baden did not entirely absolve the Israeli authorities. He told a news conference here Friday that the harsh conditions in the prison, the pressures of the interrogation and the near freezing temperatures in the room could have contributed to cardiac failure.
As news of Akawai’s death spread, the Palestinian community and many Israelis held the General Security Services — or Shin Bet, Israel’s internal intelligence agency–responsible.
Its operatives have been implicated in suspicious deaths of Arab detainees in the past.
Suspicion of torture increased after Akawai, appearing before a Hebron military court Feb. 3 to have his period of detention extended, displayed bloody wounds and bruises he claimed were inflicted under questioning.
The presiding judge, Maj. Moshe Knobler, ordered the police to investigate but refused an appeal by Akawai’s attorney to release the prisoner for medical treatment.
Baden said at his news conference that if the prisoner had received immediate medical attention and was hospitalized, his life might have been saved.
TEMPLE MOUNT VIOLENCE AVERTED
Both before and after the autopsy, passions ran high among the Palestinians. Faisal Husseini, a nationalist leader in East Jerusalem, summoned a news conference at which he accused the Israelis of having beaten Akawai to death.
Left-wing Knesset members Amnon Rubinstein and Yossi Sarid, along with Haim Oron, chairman of the Labor Party’s Knesset faction, joined the attack on the Shin Bet.
A day after Akawai died, Palestinians staged a protest parade in East Jerusalem, which police broke up when it threatened to get out of hand.
Thousands attended Akawai’s funeral, which began at the deceased’s home in Jerusalem’s Wad Joz neighborhood and ended at the Moslem cemetery near the Lion’s Gate, at the eastern entrance to the Old City.
Palestinian leader Faisal Husseini was among the mourners, as was Ali Abu-Hillal, a deported activists who was allowed to return to Jerusalem late last year.
Simultaneously with the funeral, a ceremony outside Al-Aksa Mosque on the Temple Mount turned into a fierce nationalist rally. Youths climbed to the roof of the mosque waving giant Palestinian flags. The crowed began to chant demands for revenge.
The Jerusalem police was poised to enter the Temple Mount to restore order but thought better of it.
A police attack to end a rock-throwing riot there 18 months ago resulted in the deaths of 17 Palestinians and touched off a series of revenge stabbings of Jews.
This time, Police Commander Haim Albaldes appealed to the heads of the Supreme Moslem Council, who are in charge of the Islamic shrines on the Temple Mount. They intervened and quiet was restored within minutes.
There were scattered incidents over the weekend in the administered territories. An Israeli farmer who picked up Arab workers from Dahariya, near Hebron, said one of them stabbed him while he was driving and left him for dead in the back of his truck.
And Hilla Levy, a 23-year-old resident of Netsarim settlement in the Gaza Strip, was seriously injured by an explosive device that detonated in the settlement’s greenhouse.
An Arab woman from Artas village, near Bethlehem, died of heart failure Saturday after Israeli soldiers fired rubber bullets at a car rushing her to a hospital.
The car, driven by the woman’s son, smashed through an IDF roadblock, “endangering the lives of the soldiers,” the IDF said.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
