Tom Hurndall

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Thomas Hurndall
Born November 29, 1981(1981-11-29)
London
Died January 13, 2004 (aged 22)
London
Occupation Activist

Thomas "Tom" Hurndall (November 29, 1981 – January 13, 2004) was a British photography student, a volunteer for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), and an activist against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. On April 11, 2003, he was shot in the head in the Gaza Strip by an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) sniper, Taysir Hayb. According to witnesses, this occurred while he was acting “as a human shield, escorting children away from gunfire.”[1] Hurndall was left in a coma and died nine months later.

Hayb was convicted of manslaughter and obstruction of justice by an Israeli military court in April 2005 and sentenced to eight years in prison.[1] On April 10, 2006, a British inquest found that Hurndall had been "intentionally killed", i.e. an official verdict of unlawful killing[2]

Tom's mother Jocelyn Hurndall has written a biography of him called Defy the Stars: The Life and Tragic Death of Tom Hurndall, published in April 2007.

Contents

[edit] Incident

In April 2003, the IDF were on a mission in the Gaza border town of Rafah. Hurndall and a group of activists were in the area, having planned to set up a peace tent on one of the nearby roads to blockade IDF tank patrols. At an IDF checkpoint on April 11, the IDF states that it came under fire from Palestinian gunmen and returned fire, causing Hurndall's group of nine activists to abandon their protest and seek cover. Hurndall then ran out into the street and was shot in the head by an IDF soldier.

His father told a British inquest that, according to ISM and Palestinian witnesses, Hurndall had seen a group of children playing and had noticed that bullets were hitting the ground between them. Several children had run away but some were “overcome with fear,” according to The Guardian, and Hurndall went to help them. Hurndall's father told the inquest: “Tom went to take one girl out of the line of fire, which he did successfully, but when he went back, as he knelt down [to collect another], he was shot.”[2]

[edit] Inquiry and trial

The IDF initially refused more than a routine internal inquiry, which concluded that Hurndall was shot accidentally in the crossfire, and suggested that his group's members were essentially functioning as human shields.[citation needed] However, witnesses at the demonstration in the Palestinian town of Rafah said he had been hit by a rifle bullet while trying to shield the children rather than having been merely hit in the crossfire, and Hurndall's parents demanded an investigation.[2] After several months of pressure from the parents, supported in part by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Israel's Judge Advocate General Menahem Finkelstein in October 2003 ordered the IDF to open a military police investigation into Hurndall's death.

On 28 October 2003 it was reported in the international press that Hurndall's family had made an application to UK courts to have him removed from his life support and quicken his death.[citation needed] The defence in the trial of ex-Sergeant Taysir attempted to raise doubts as to what ultimately caused Hurndall's death. A military court was informed that Hurndall died of pneumonia. Chen Kugel, an Israeli forensic pathologist appearing for the defence, stated that the pneumonia had not been properly treated and “the large amounts of morphine” Hurndall was receiving.[3] The court rejected these claims.[2]

On January 1, 2004 20-year old Sergeant Taysir Hayb, an IDF soldier from a Bedouin patrol, appeared in court to have his custody extended; apparently he had been arrested in late December 2003 and an IDF press release said that he had "admitted to firing in proximity to an unarmed civilian as a deterrent". Initially the soldier admitted to shooting what he described as a man wearing a uniform of a Palestinian faction and armed with a pistol. Upon further interrogation, he changed his story, and said he had fired a shot near an unarmed civilian as a deterrent, but ended up hitting him unintentionally. Subsequently, the soldier was indicted on six charges, including a charge of aggravated assault; following Hurndall's death, the military judge overseeing the case indicated the charge was likely to be changed to manslaughter or murder.[citation needed]

On February 12, 2004, the charge was upgraded to one of manslaughter. According to an army statement, he was also charged with "intent to cause injury, two counts of obstruction of justice, one count of submitting false information, one count of incitement to submit false information and one count of unbecoming conduct."

On May 10, 2004 Sergeant Taysir's trial began at a military court in Ashkelon. There were six indictments: manslaughter; two counts of obstruction of justice; incitement to false testimony; false testimony; improper conduct. Taysir had entered a plea of not guilty to all charges at an earlier non-public hearing. After some argument over the admissibility of Taysir's confession, the trial was adjourned until the 19th. many press links Until early August 2004, the trial remained adjourned for much of the time.

On June 27, 2005, Sergeant Taysir al-Heib was convicted of manslaughter, obstruction of justice, giving false testimony and inducing comrades in his unit to bear false witness.

On August 11, 2005, al-Heib was sentenced to eight years in prison by a military court. [1]

Tom Hurndall's family and their legal team were denied access to the Military Police report which led to the trial. After an appeal to the Supreme Court, the state prosecution offered access to the report to the legal team but not the Hurndall family in early August. According to a spokesman for the Tom Hurndall Foundation, this will allow them to decide whether Taysir could be indicted for the more serious charge of murder, and to find out if responsibility lies higher up the chain of command.[2]

[edit] Inquest

On April 10, 2006, a British inquest jury at St Pancras coroner's court in London found that Hurndall had been "intentionally killed". Hurndall's father told reporters that there had been a "general policy" to shoot civilians in the area without fear of reprisals, [2] as stated by the soldier who fired the shot, Taysir Hayb. Hayb had earlier told a military tribunal that the Israeli army "fires freely in Rafah." [4] The lawyer representing the family, Michael Mansfield QC, stated: "Make no mistake about it, the Israeli defence force have today been found culpable by this jury of murder." A week earlier, an inquest found that the British journalist James Miller had been murdered by an Israeli soldier just three weeks after Mr Hurndall was shot, a mile away from Hurndall's position. The coroner Dr. Andrew Reid stated that he would write to the attorney general about how similar incidences could be prevented, including the possible prosecutions of Israeli commanders, and that the case raised issues of command within the IDF. He stated that "two British citizens engaged in lawful activities" had been killed by Israeli soldiers, and that "British citizens, journalists, photographers or others may be subject to the risk of fatal shots." [5]

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[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b Soldier jailed for activist death. BBC News (August 11, 2005). Retrieved on 2006-10-24.
  2. ^ a b c d e Atkinson, Simon; agencies (April 10, 2006). British peace activist was ‘intentionally killed’. The Guardian. Retrieved on 2006-10-24.
  3. ^ Farrago, Yonit; Stephen Farrell (May 9, 2005). Israeli sniper blames British doctors for death of activist. The Times. Retrieved on 2006-10-24.
  4. ^ Dodd, Vikram. "Israel to boycott inquest into death of British peace activist shot in Gaza", The Guardian, April 10, 2006.
  5. ^ Dodd, Vikram. "Calls for UK to act over Britons shot dead in Gaza", The Guardian, April 11, 2006.

[edit] References

[edit] External links