Jerusalem (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The Israeli authorities have indicted four fellow citizens, accused of the beating that led to the death of an Eritrean migrant worker last October in Beersheba, at the bus station. The 29 year-old Habtom Zerhom was shot by a security guard who mistook him for being armed ready to commit a terrorist attack; later the crowd lynched him with blows and kicks.
The autopsy performed on the body in the days after the attack showed that the young man did not die after the beating, but from the wounds inflicted by bullets fired by the guard. His body was riddled with eight bullets, two of which were fatal.
Official Israeli sources report that the four on trial are Ronen Cohen, security guard; Yaakov Shimb a soldier and two civilians (David Moyal and Evyatar Dimri), who participated to varying degrees in the lynching of the Eritrean migrant. They must face charges of aggravated assault, for attacking a young unconscious man unable to defend himself.
The images taken by security cameras, dating back to October 18, show an angry mob surrounding Zerhom, while lying on the ground wounded by bullets and blocked by a chair that a security guard kept pressed on him. The youth (pictured, in a commemoration of the Eritrean community in the days following his death) was hit by a barrage of blows to the head and then got kicked about by the crowd.
The incident provoked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to issue an official note pleading with citizens not to take the law into their own hands.
The lynching coincided with another attack in Bersheeba in which an Arab Israeli citizen stabbed civilians in the context of the so-called intifada of knives which has been bloodying the streets and squares of Israeli Territories for several months. An Israeli soldier dies in the attack- in addition to the attacker himself, "neutralized", ie killed by the security forces - and 10 other people were injured.
According to official data, the third intifada knives has caused 22 casualties among Israeli citizens and 149 deaths on the Palestinian side. Of these, half were attackers and others died in clashes with the Israeli security forces. Some Palestinians were killed only because they were suspected of being possible attackers.