Hebron shooter confesses: Knife was not near al-Sharif like I told police
Defense arguments crack under relentless cross-examination
Hebron shooter Elor Azaria confessed to the Jaffa Military Court Monday that the knife he had told military police was close to Abdel Fatah al-Sharif was in fact several meters away.
The admission, a major breakthrough for the IDF prosecution in the manslaughter trial, came as part of day one of IDF Prosecutor Lt. Col. Nadav Weissman’s cross-examination of Sgt. Azaria regarding his March 24 shooting of Sharif, who had attacked two IDF soldiers with a knife, and had been shot and wounded.
The IDF prosecution has accused Azaria of killing Sharif in cold-blood after he was neutralized. Azaria testified that even though Sharif was wounded, in the pressure of the moment he thought the prone terrorist still presented an immediate danger – either by reaching for the nearby knife or by detonating a concealed explosive.
Many of the carefully constructed defense arguments which Azaria’s lawyers Ilan Katz and Eyal Besserglick had built up, and which the soldier himself testified about on Sunday, cracked under Weissman’s relentless cross-examination.
Weissman started by asking Azaria about why other witnesses in the court martial said the knife was farther away from Sharif than he had said, and why he had changed his story about which hand was closer to the knife.
Finally Weissman asked if the witness, who had admitted to moving the knife closer to Sharif, had lied when he said the knife was always close to him.
Azaria maintained his composure throughout Monday’s difficult cross-examination. He repeatedly tried to evade uncomfortable questions with responses like “I saw what I saw,” “He saw what he saw,” and “I do not trust the video.”
At one point, Azaria’s attempt to treat the video as not only imperfect but as virtually useless exasperated lead Judge Col. Maya Heller. Raising her voice at the Hebron shooter and his lawyers, she said, “You can’t say I won’t even address the video.”
Following this support from the bench, Weissman said Azaria must answer “objectively” where the knife was, based on the video.
When Azaria tried to debate with him if there was an objective view, the prosecutor retorted “Objective means in the world of reality we live in!”
Finally, Azaria admitted that the knife was far away in the video, and not close like he had originally claimed. But the accused awkwardly and inconsistently tried to argue that he had seen the knife closer, even as the video clearly showed that the knife was never closer to the prone terrorist.
With the lights in the room dimmed for the court’s viewing of the video showing the placement of the knife second by second, Azaria’s father, Charlie, sensed his son was in trouble and tried to whisper some advice.
Judge Heller, sitting three meters away, immediately cutin, practically shouting, “You are not allowed to speak to your son during cross-examination. I do not want to have to throw anyone out of court.”
Another key moment came where the three judges directly questioned Azaria about why he thought the IDF’s rule “If there is a doubt, there is no doubt,” meant he should shoot in that instance rather than he should hold off using force in that instance?
Azaria seemed flustered by the question, which showed the judges critiquing his basic understanding of the rules of engagement. But he said that his biggest worry was that if he did not act, he would have to explain his failure to act to the victims of a terrorist.
Other issues raised Monday included: Who lied in the case; who forgot some facts, and who did not lie.
When questioned by Weissman whether three IDF commanders who testified against Azaria had lied, Azaria responded that Maj. Tom Naaman was “100 percent a liar,” and that Lt.-Col. David Shapira had partially lied, and partially forgotten key details of the March 24 incident. Azaria refrained however from saying any lower ranking soldier had lied in his testimony. This both partially hurt and partially helped the accused, as he did not take a strong position on the reliability of the evidence of his comradein-arms Col. Yariv Ben Ezra, who had testified he was only involved in the affair in a peripheral and manner.
Azaria also struggled to definitively answer questions from the prosecution Monday regarding his new claim, which he revealed Sunday, alleging that Naaman slapped him twice following the shooting.
Weissman indicated that Azaria had fabricated the account, asking the defendant why he hadn’t previously mentioned the incident.
Azaria countered that he hoped Naaman would return to court to testify about the issue.