An Israeli court in Tel Aviv has agreed to consider a September 2009 ruling by a Cairo appeals court ordering Israel to pay US$10 million in compensation to the family of Amer Abu Bakr Amer, an Egyptian soldier killed by the Israeli military almost six years ago. According to reports, Amer was struck by Israeli tank fire in November, 2004 while stationed at the Egypt-Israel border near the city of Rafah.
The case was originally filed by the victim’s family against the Israeli ambassador to Egypt in his capacity as representative of the Israeli government.
According to Ashraf Mahrous, a lawyer for the victim’s family, an Israeli court will likely examine the case before the end of July.
Mahrous, for his part, denounced the Egyptian Foreign Ministry’s handling of the case.
“We resorted to working with an Israeli lawyer in order to complete the necessary procedures for opening the case in Israel,” he said. “We had to do this after we were completely ignored by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry.”
The lawyer went on to say that the ministry had backtracked from its earlier vow to force the Israeli authorities to pay the compensation stipulated by the Egyptian court, which “was made after members of the People’s Assembly submitted requests for information on the issue.”
Mahrous expressed confidence that Israel would deliver the requested sum. If paid, he said, the award would represent the first of its kind to be paid by Israel to Egypt and would open the door to trying Israel for other “massacres” committed against Egyptians.
“Israeli lawyer Mamuk Yunis previously succeeded in obtaining US$12 million in compensation from an Israeli court in the case of a Tunisian girl beaten by an Israeli soldier at the border between Jordan and Israel,” Mahrous added.
Abu Bakr Amer, the victim’s father, urged the Egyptian government to protect its citizens. He stressed that he did not trust the current government, which, he said, tended to neglect the poor since it was a “government of the rich.”
Amer called on President Hosni Mubarak to personally intervene in the case. “The judiciary treated us fairly, and now we want the government to follow suit,” he said. “I call on the president to stand beside us.”
“We aren’t asking for a war, nor will money compensate me for my lost son. But we want to feel that Egypt is looking after its own,” Amer added.
Two other Egyptian soldiers, Hany Sabahi el-Nagar and Mohamed Abdel Fatah, also died in the incident, which occurred while the soldiers were on night guard duty. According to the Cairo Appeals Court, the incident was not an accident but rather an act of premeditated murder.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
