Trial of soldier involved in Hebron shooting enters final evidentiary stage

The trial of Sgt. Elor Azaria, who is facing manslaughter charges for the killing of an incapacitated terrorist in Hebron in March, entered its final evidentiary stage on Wednesday at the Jaffa Military Court.

Among the witnesses expected to take the stand are pathologist Dr. Hadas Gipes of the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute, who performed the autopsy on terrorist Abdel Fattah al-Sharif. Gipes found that the wound inflicted by Azaria's gunshot caused the death.

"The other bodily injuries [to the terrorist] were not fatal, not in the immediate term," she wrote in her autopsy report. "With medical attention, it is almost certain he would have survived. Even without medical treatment it's possible the deceased would have survived. Blood was still reaching the area of the wound. This means he was still alive at the time of the incident."

Testifying for the defense, the former chief pathologist at the Abu Kabir Institute, Professor Yehuda Hiss, said Sharif had died of "acute respiratory failure exacerbated by a blood clot to the brain, following a fatal injury to the right lung."

Hiss concluded that "the bullet Azaria fired most likely hit the Palestinian attacker post-mortem."

Defense attorneys Eyal Besserglick, Ilan Katz and Carmit Shchiver said in a statement on Tuesday: "The pathologist on behalf of the prosecution will testify as a refuting witness [on Wednesday]. Dr. Gipes, whose opinion was completely contradicted by the former head of Abu Kabir Forensic Institute Professor Hiss, has given a completely new opinion which changes the facts that were noted in her original pathological findings, with all its implications, in a refuting testimony that is usually specific. What we have here is a new opinion."

Azaria's attorneys added that "the civilian military liaison will also take the witness stand on Wednesday. It wasn't for nothing that this witness, who was an eyewitness to the incident and was supposed to be summoned a long time ago as a witness for the prosecution, never did testify for the prosecution and wasn't summoned by it, because he contradicts the prosecution's thesis."