Israeli police convicted of leaving Palestinian to die

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JERUSALEM - Two Israeli police officers were convicted Monday of negligent homicide for removing a suspected Palestinian car thief from a prison hospital and leaving him on an abandoned road, where he died of dehydration.

Omar Abu Jariban was driving a stolen car in May 2008 when he was seriously injured in an accident. After it was determined that the Palestinian was inside Israel illegally, police officers Baruch Peretz and Assaf Yakutieli decided to leave Jariban -- still reportedly dazed, dressed in a hospital gown and connected to a catheter -- by the side of the road near the West Bank city of Ramallah.

The officers said they thought he would be picked up by Palestinians.

‘No person with eyes on his face and compassion in his heart would have made the decision that the two made,’ the judge said, according to Haaretz newspaper.

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- Edmund Sanders