Qatari television network Al Jazeera announced this Tuesday that it presented the case of the death of the journalist to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Shireen Abu Akleharguing that she was killed by Israeli forces during a press coverage.
Al Jazeera said in a statement that it had “uncovered new evidence” about the circumstances of the death of the Palestinian-American reporter, who was shot in the head on May 11 while covering an Israeli army raid in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank. .
The ICC is not obliged to examine cases sent to it by groups or individuals, and most do not get to be investigatedaccording to the organization itself.
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Al Jazeera added in its call for the case to be investigated that there is “new witness and video evidence (which) clearly shows that Shireen and her colleagues were shot directly by the Israeli Occupation Forces.”
The news channel mentioned that “the Israeli authorities’ allegation that Shireen was mistakenly killed in a gunfight is completely unfounded.”
An AFP journalist saw a lawyer representing Al Jazeera enter the ICC offices in The Hague to present the case.
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The ICC began an investigation into war crimes in the Palestinian territories, but Israel questions its jurisdiction.
The Israeli army admitted on September 5 that there was a possibility that one of its soldiers shot the journalist after mistaking her for a militant. But Israel has stated that it will not cooperate with any external investigation into Abu Akleh’s death.
“Nobody will investigate the soldiers” of the Israeli army “and nobody lectures us about the morality of war, least of all Al Jazeera,” Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said.
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‘Full cover up’
The veteran journalist was wearing a bulletproof vest marked “Press” and a helmet when she was shot in the head in the Jenin refugee camp, a historic site of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Her niece, Lina Abu Akleh, asked the ICC to investigate the reporter’s death as the evidence is “overwhelmingly clear”. “We hope that the ICC will take action,” the journalist’s niece said at a press conference in The Hague, where she added that she had requested a meeting with prosecutor Karim Kahn.
“My family still doesn’t know who fired that deadly bullet or who was in the chain of command that killed my aunt,” she lamented.
My family still doesn’t know who fired that deadly bullet or who was in the chain of command that killed my aunt.
Lawyer Rodney Dixon said there was a “total cover-up” of Abu Akleh’s death by the Israeli authorities.
The lawyer alleged that this killing is part of a “widespread and systematic campaign” against Al Jazeera by Israel, which included last year’s bombing of a building in Gaza that housed the TV station’s headquarters.
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“It is a clear attempt to shut down and silence Al Jazeera,” Dixon said, adding that they hope “now there will be justice for Shireen.”
Dixon reported that There had not yet been a formal meeting with the prosecution in the case, but they had provided the ICC with various pieces of evidence, including several USB sticks.
After receiving a formal complaint from individuals or groups, the ICC decides independently which cases to send to the judges of the court. It is the magistrates who decide whether to allow a preliminary investigation by the prosecutor, which may be followed by a formal investigation and, if appropriate, the filing of charges.
AFP
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