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News Updates	Tue., November 23, 2004 Kislev 10, 5765	Israel Time: 10:38 (GMT+2)

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Last Update: 23/11/2004 10:38

IDF officer indicted for shooting 13-year-old girl

By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent

An indictment was brought Monday in the Southern Command's Military Court Monday against Captain R., a Givati company commander accused of illegally using his weapon to kill 13-year-old Imam al Hamas, a Palestinian girl who was on her way to school near the Girit outpost in southern Gaza.

Military prosecutors issued a five-count indictment against the officer, including two counts of illegally using his weapon, and one count each of obstruction of justice, conduct unbecoming an officer, and improper use of authority. The officer, who has been suspended, was not identified.

Channel Two's documentary show Fact broadcast Monday night the army communications tape recording of the real-time events, including videotape, in which R. is heard explicitly stating he "verified the kill." The tape showed that the soldiers at the outpost kept firing at the girl even after she had been identified by soldiers as "about 10 years old."

The October 5 event took place around 7 in the morning, when a soldier on duty at the outpost spotted a "suspicious figure" about 100 meters from the outpost. Soldiers immediately began firing at the figure while R., the outpost commander, together with some officers and soldiers, left the outpost and took up a position behind a sand rampart next to the outpost.

The soldiers said they thought she was planting a bomb. The girl's family said she was on her way to school when she was shot. According to the indictment, R. charged the girl after she was shot and fired two rounds at her from close range. He began walking away, then turned around and shot her again.

"The accused stood similarly to the way he stood when he shot her twice - pointed his weapon downward and shot, this time on automatic, approximately 10 bullets until he emptied his magazine," the indictment says. It is not known whether the girl was already dead when he shot her. At the time, Palestinian hospital officials said the girl was shot at least 15 times, mostly in the upper body.

The accused officer initially said he came under fire from Palestinian gunmen at least 300 yards (meters) away as he approached the girl's body and shot at the ground to deter the fire, a military official said. The official could not explain why the officer shot into the ground rather than at the source of the fire.

The military prosecutor said the military law does not include "verification of the kill" as a crime, so they decided to charge R. with "illegal use of a weapon." He is not being charged with manslaughter since there is no evidence that R.'s bullets were those that killed the girl.

The decision not to charge the other soldiers at the outpost was because they acted on the assumption that the suspicious figure was a terrorist and not a young girl. R. however, is heard in the tape specifically saying he shot "the girl," and had heard on the communications radio that the figure was a young girl.

Iman Alhamas, 13, was shot dead by soldiers near the IDF's Girit outpost in western Rafah in the Gaza Strip on October 5. (Reproduction)

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