Israeli suspected of killing Palestinian woman could be released to house arrest

An Israeli court has ordered an examination into whether the suspected killer of 47-year-old Palestinian woman Aisha Mohammed Al-Rabi can be placed under house arrest, reported Haaretz.

The 16-year-old Jewish Israeli, who can not be named due to a court-imposed gag order, was been charged with manslaughter after being arrested last December.

He is suspected of committing “the racially-motivated murder” of Al-Rabi on 12 October, when, according to the indictment, a number of settlers gathered on a hill near Route 60 in the central occupied West Bank.

The suspect “held a rock weighing close to two kilograms, with the intention of using it to harm Arab passengers, out of an ideological motive of racism and hostility toward Arabs everywhere”, the indictment states.

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Four other individuals were arrested in early January, and subsequently released (the gag order also prevents the publication of their names). All suspects are students “in the same yeshiva in a West Bank settlement”.

Judge Hagai Tarsi “said the Probation Service would examine the possibility of releasing the minor to house arrest with an electronic monitoring device at his grandparents’ house in Kfar Saba.”

“Should their house meet the necessary requirements, the suspect is expected to be released to full house arrest within a week,” the report added.

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“The judge said the suspect would be under the supervision of his parents, grandparents or other designated family members 24 hours a day, and that he would be forbidden from contacting others. In addition, the judge would set the suspect’s bail at 100,000 shekels ($27,000).”

Although the suspect’s DNA evidence was found on the rock that killed Al-Rabi, the suspect has denied the allegations, telling interrogators: “I was walking around a lot in that area and might have spat and hit a rock.”

The judge stated that the minor’s version of events could “open a significant gap in the alleged evidentiary basis that would justify rejecting the state’s request, and releasing the minor under very restrictive conditions.”