East Jerusalem cell charged over killing of two Border Policemen

East Jerusalem cell charged over killing of two Border Policemen

By Jonathan Lis, Yuval Azoulay and Ofra Edelman, Haaretz Correspondents

15:49 24/09/2008

Three East Jerusalem residents have been charged with orchestrating two recent terror attacks in the capital in which two Border Policemen were killed, it emerged on Wednesday. The lifting of a gag order on the affair Wednesday allowed publication of the suspects' arrest and indictment. Prosecutors filed the indictment ten days ago at Jerusalem District Court. According to the indictment, the cell was responsible for the murder of Border Policeman Rami Zuari in a January shooting attack at the Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem. A Border Policewoman was also wounded in the attack.

The suspects were also accused of perpetrating the shooting attack in July at the Lion's Gate entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem, where Border Policeman David Shriki suffered wounds to which he later succumbed some two weeks later. In that attack too, another Border Policeman was hurt. Following the attacks, the Shin Bet security service and Jerusalem police launched an investigation that led to the arrest of the cell's leader, Mohammed Khalil Adnan Abu-Sneina.

A search of the 21-year-old's home in the Anata neighborhood of Jerusalem revealed three handguns, knives and electric stunguns. The investigation also revealed that Abu-Sneina planned the attacks while touring the city on breaks from manning a market stall. News of the indictment came two days after the most recent in a spate of attacks by East Jerusalem residents, in which a Palestinian plowed his car into pedestrians at a busy Jerusalem intersection, wounding more than a dozen soldiers.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1024115.html