JERUSALEM, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- The Jerusalem District Attorney' s Office on Sunday charged a border police officer in the fatal shooting of a Palestinian youth during a West Bank demonstration, accusing him of switching his rubber-coated bullets with more lethal live bullets that killed the boy.
The defendant, a paramilitary Border Police officer whose name has not been disclosed, was arrested on Nov. 12.
The prosecutors' decision to level a charge of manslaughter rather than murder triggered criticism from the boy's father, Siyam Nawarah, who told Palestinian media that the prosecutors ignored evidence showing the killing was premeditated.
Manslaughter is an unintentional killing, which bears in Israel a maximum punishment of 20 years in prison, although judges often reduce the sentence due to special circumstances. Murder -- an unlawful premeditated killing -- usually means a life sentence.
On May 15, 17-year-old Nadim Nawarah was shot dead during a protest outside the Village of Bitunya near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
During the demonstration, several protesters hurled stones at Israeli forces. However, CCTV footage showed that Nawarah hurled no stones and posed no immediate threat to the troops, who were standing some 60 meters away.
The indictment said that the border policeman slipped live ammunition to a magazine that was supposed to contain only the less lethal, blanked rubber-coated bullets.
"The defendant used the magazine blanks so that his live fire, as opposed to rubber-bullet fire, would not be observed," the indictment said. The officer then pointed his weapon towards Nuwarah's upper body, "with the intent of causing him severe injury, and while anticipating the possibility that he would cause his death."
Initially, the Israeli army denied that the forces operating in the area that day had used live ammunition. However, a bullet recovered from Nawarah's backpack, and metallic fragments extracted from his body during an autopsy, suggested he was hit by live ammunition.
The policeman has yet to plead to the charges.
According to the Israeli human rights watchdog Bt'selem, Sunday 's indictment was the second time that the Israeli prosecution pressed charges against an Israeli soldier, although since 2012, Israeli security forces have killed 45 Palestinians in the West Bank, in 36 separate incidents.
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