Raz Sagi, a candidate for mayor in the central Israeli town of Rosh Ha’ayin [Raz Sagi/Facebook]
While serving in the IDF during the First Intifada, mayoral candidate Raz Sagi shot and killed a fleeing Palestinian teen. Sagi was sentenced to 3 months community service, pardoned, then promoted.
from MEMO, Middle East Monitor
A candidate for mayor in the central Israeli town of Rosh Ha’ayin was convicted of killing a Palestinian teenager during the First Intifada, reported Ha’aretz.
Raz Sagi, then serving as a company commander in the occupied West Bank, shot Zuhein Abu Hiya in the back as he fled, following confrontations between stone-throwing youth and soldiers in a Ramallah-area village in October 1989.
Chasing the boy, Sagi first shot a plastic bullet in the air, then shot him in the back.
A court subsequently determined “that the boy posed no danger to the soldiers” and sentenced Sagi to three months community service within the military, but he “was not demoted”.
Furthermore, “two weeks after sentence was passed, Sagi was pardoned by then-Chief of Staff Dan Shomron”, and “he was subsequently promoted to battalion commander in the Givati Brigade”.
Sagi retired from the military at the rank of colonel after serving as a division commander.
According to Sagi, Haaretz added, “the fact that numerous character witnesses testified in his behalf during the trial as well as his subsequent pardon he later received proved that the army saw no fault in his actions.”
Related reading:
for a complete list of killings on both sides since the beginning of the Second Intifada, visit Israel – Palestine Timeline
