Israeli officer who shot dead autistic Palestinian man is acquitted

An Israeli police officer who shot dead a a 32-year-old autistic Palestinian man after mistaking him for a terrorist has been acquitted by a Jerusalem court.

The police officer had taken the life of Eyad al-Hallaq, after shooting him  in East Jerusalem, in 2020.

Jerusalem’s district court ruled on Thursday that the officer made “an honest mistake” after wrongly believing he was “faced with an armed terrorist” and “didn’t know Eyad was an innocent man with special needs.”

Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, applauded the sentence.

In a statement he said the “hero soldiers who protect the State of Israel with their lives will get a hug and full backing from me and from the Israeli government.”

But as the ruling was announced the Palestinian’s father said the result was a “disgrace,” and that there is “one justice [system] for Jews and another for Arabs.”

His mother was heard to cried out “You are all terrorists! My son is under the ground!”

The officer, whose name is barred from publication, had been charged with the reckless homicide when the trial began last year.

In February, the officer told the Jerusalem District Court that he was certain al-Hallaq was a terrorist on a shooting spree and was about to murder a woman.

The female was later revealed to be the al-Hallaq’s school councillor.

After he was chased by police al-Hallaq run off its a shed, and the officer said he heard a woman’s screams.

“From where I stood, the terrorist was about to murder the woman. There was awful screaming,” he said in a statement.

“As I saw it, I was saving this woman.”

After the police officer was charged it was stated that al-Hallaq had been on his way to his special needs school in May 2020 wearing a black mask and gloves.

Officers said the man behaved in a manner that suggested he was about to carry out an attack.