JERUSALEM: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas should order an independent investigation into the death of Haitham Amer, Human Rights Watch said today. Amer died 18 months ago, allegedly under torture by Palestinian security agents. A criminal inquiry and subsequent investigation failed to punish anyone for his death. In recent interviews with Human Rights Watch, three witnesses to Amer's death independently provided graphic accounts of the events that led up to it. All three said they had provided the information in testimony at the inquiry and that they had identified intelligence agents who participated in torture, one of whom was never charged. Countries that provide direct support to the Palestinian Authority (PA) security agencies, notably the UK and US, should suspend aid to these agencies until officials are held accountable for human rights abuses, Human Rights Watch said. “Is acquitting officers so clearly implicated in torture and murder the kind of ‘state building' we should look forward to from the Palestinian Authority?” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The PA's foreign supporters should suspend funding to its security forces until it can show that officials who torture and kill people are being prosecuted and punished.” Amer died on June 15, 2009, while detained at the General Intelligence Service headquarters in Hebron, allegedly under interrogation. A Palestinian military court trial in July 2010 acquitted the five security officers accused of Amer's death, claiming “lack of evidence” despite an official Palestinian autopsy report stating that he had died due to torture and testimony by the three detainees who witnessed his death. The trial is the only known instance in which Palestinian security officials in the West Bank have been criminally prosecuted for torture, despite hundreds of torture allegations. To Human Rights Watch's knowledge, no Palestinian security official has been convicted for abusing persons in custody. The PA suspected Amer, a 33 year-old nurse at a Hebron hospital, of membership in Hamas, the authority's bitter rival, according to media reports. The authorities had not charged him with any offense and it is not clear why they arrested him, although tensions with Hamas were high at the time, after fatal gun battles between Hamas and PA security forces on May 30 and June 4 in the northern West Bank city of Qalqilya. The Palestinian special military court in Hebron that acquitted the five accused officers found that General Intelligence Service officials had negligently failed to stop Amer from falling to his death from an upper floor of the agency's headquarters. In sworn testimony to prosecutors, prisoners who witnessed Amer's death identified two intelligence officers responsible for torturing him severely for four days and denying his requests for medical care despite his clearly worsening health. One of these officers, and another officer whom these witnesses testified had tortured them, were not indicted. HRW
