US teenager freed on bail by Israeli court

Abu Khdeir's father told Al Jazeera that the boy in the videotape was his son

15-year-old banned from Shuafat in East Jerusalem, ordered to pay $850 bail bond and complete 10 days' house arrest.

Jerusalem -  A Palestinian-American teenager who rights groups say was subjected to a brutal beating by Israeli police has been freed on bail by a Jerusalem court pending an investigation.

Tariq Abu Khdeir, 15, was arrested on Thursday in Shuafat in occupied East Jerusalem, during the second day of violent clashes that followed the killing of his Palestinian cousin, who was also a teenager. Police officers led the manacled teen into the Jerusalem criminal court on Sunday morning, severe injuries still visible on his face.

His lawyer said Abu Khdeir was ordered to pay $ 850  bail and complete 10 days of house arrest. He was also banned from entering Shuafat for 15 days. The bail bond, which was reduced from an initial $2,857, is returnable if the conditions are met.

Speaking after the hearing Abu Khdeir's father,  Salah Abu Khdeir, told Al Jazeera there was no evidence to support continuing the investigation.

" If my son was involved in throwing rocks, the Israelis would have kept him," he said. "If he was involved in the situation in Shuafat, they would have kept him."

A video released by Palestine TV showed three masked officers beating a handcuffed teenager and then dragging him away.

The boy could not be identified from the tape, but photographs released on Friday by Addameer, a local rights group, showed the badly beaten Abu Khdeir with severe injuries to his face.

Abu Khdeir's father told Al Jazeera that the boy in the video was his son, and no other Palestinians have come forward to report similar injuries.

He also said that he was locked in the police station for seven hours without medical treatment until he called the US embassy and they assisted in getting him to hospital.

"As soon as I say this is an American passport for him, they start to change the story and to say, we don't know this is an American and give some excuse," he said.

The boy's mother,  Suha Abu Khdeir, told Al Jazeera her son was "not recognisable".

The case has attracted heavy media attention because of his ties to the United States: Abu Khdeir lives with his family in Florida, and was in Jerusalem on holiday. Dozens of journalists attended the hearing. “This happens every day to Palestinians here,” his mother said. “We just have a connection, because we’re American.”

The US state department said it was "profoundly disturbed" by the video and demanded a full investigation.

An Israeli police spokesman said the videos were "edited," and accused Abu Khdeir of taking part in clashes with police.

The violence in Shuafat came after Abu Khdeir's cousin, Mohammed Abu Khdeir , was abducted and later found dead. Palestinians say he was killed in a revenge attack for the murder of three teenage Jewish settlers last month.

His badly burned body was found in a Jerusalem forest earlier this week.

Tariq Abu Khdeir's family had been due to return to the US on July 16th. A US consular official at the hearing said his departure from Israel would be contingent on police finishing their investigation.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/07/us-teen-appear-israeli-court-201476851982465.html

If he hadn't have had an American passport he'd still be locked up and being beaten.

 Horrific.

Not a good idea to be throwing rocks at police......

Tommy Monk wrote:Not a good idea to be throwing rocks at police......

Except he wasn't, which is why the American Embassy is going nuts, and he was handcuffed and then literally beaten black and blue by the Israeli police and they have it on video.   I bet they thought 'oh shit' when they realised it was on video and he had an American passport.

You can prove it...?

It's on video.

Tommy Monk wrote:Not a good idea to be throwing rocks at police......

He wasn't Matt? Did you watch the video?

No, only heard that he was among a group who were rioting and throwing rocks etc at police.



If he wasn't involved then he was unlucky to be targeted, but he should have got well away from any trouble in the first place to clearly disassociate himself from it and risk being caught up in it all....

He wasn't unlucky, it's normal, he was simply lucky to have a US passport otherwise the treatment of him would have continued and been even worse.

My God, are you trying to justify police beating up someone in handcuffs etc. What the hell kind of morals do you have.

Not trying to justify anything.


If he had made himself scarce when the trouble started like any other normal person who wasn't involved, instead of hanging around in the thick of it then he wouldn't have been targeted as being one of those responsible.

Forget it!

Tommy Monk wrote:Not trying to justify anything.


If he had made himself scarce when the trouble started like any other normal person who wasn't involved, instead of hanging around in the thick of it then he wouldn't have been targeted as being one of those responsible.

You're disgusting, his cousin had just been burnt alive and he was supposed to say thank you. He wasn't stone throwing and they were kicking him in the head while he was handcuffed. Anyone with morals would be horrified, but you come out with that. You are truly low.

Tommy Monk wrote:Not trying to justify anything.


If he had made himself scarce when the trouble started like any other normal person who wasn't involved, instead of hanging around in the thick of it then he wouldn't have been targeted as being one of those responsible.

Come in Matt! What if it were your family member who'd been killed?

So was he an innocent bystander or not?

You have already been told and you have already been told he was on the floor handcuffed when he was being kicked in the head by police and it was video'd. You are truly lower than pond life.

But you are also trying to say he was there because his cousin was killed.....

:aspukeas: :aspukeas: :aspukeas: :aspukeas: :aspukeas: :aspukeas: :aspukeas: :aspukeas: :aspukeas: :aspukeas: :aspukeas: :aspukeas: :aspukeas: 

You can't have it both ways Sassy....

The Israeli security forces never harm innocents or those who don't deserve it

They are consummate professionals and know their job, I doubt this boy is all that innocent

Yea right Smelly, the video showed exactly how 'professional' they are. And would this be the same 'professional' force that used stolen British passports to kill someone?

Sassy wrote:Yea right Smelly, the video showed exactly how 'professional' they are.   And would this be the same 'professional' force that used stolen British passports to kill someone?

well what do you expect them to use sassy??

their own passports??

THAT would be unprofessional

British Government didn't feel the same.

Sassy wrote:British Government didn't feel the same.

The same British government who invaded Iraq on the back of a lie??

Hardly have room to moan about lies now do they??

Amazing how you loyalties and outrages shift so easily

No, different government actually lol

Sassy wrote:No, different government actually lol

so not the British government then??

it is doubtful that this incident even happened

The BBC has admitted that pictures of alleged Israeli airstrikes on Gaza and their aftermath may be inaccurate.

A little-known division of the corporation called BBC Trending says that many of images being shared on social media under the #GazaUnderAttack hashtag are in fact several years old, and in some cases from different conflicts.

In one case, a Twitter user posted multiple images with the caption: "This is not a matter of religion. This is a matter of humanity #GazaUnderAttack" – except one of the images was from Syria last month, and another from Baghdad in 2007.

One 16-year-old who shared another inaccurate image told BBC Trending: "I didn’t actually know that the picture was recycled," before trying to justify it by saying: "I guess I just used it as an illustration – people don't need to take it as a literal account. If you think of bombs going off that’s pretty much what it looks like."

Abdirahim Saeed of BBC Arabic said: "This misuse of pictures on social media is not particularly unique to this particular hashtag. We've seen this before in Syria, in Iraq, and you've got to keep an eye on who you’re following, [and ask yourself] where did this picture come from?"

The BBC itself, however, is not immune from sharing inaccurate images. Journalist Tom Gross, who monitors Middle Eastern media, added: "What the BBC item doesn't point out is that some of the most senior BBC correspondents in the Middle East, such as Jon Donnison have been responsible for sending out these inaccurate photos on their BBC twitter feeds!