UN Fact-Finding Mission Says Israelis "Executed" US Citizen Furkan
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UN Fact-Finding Mission Says Israelis "Executed" US Citizen Furkan Dogan
The report of the fact-finding mission of the Office of the
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on the Israeli attack
on the Gaza flotilla released last week shows conclusively, for the first time,
that US citizen Furkan Dogan and five Turkish citizens were murdered
execution-style at point blank range by Israeli commandos, and that five other
passengers were killed in similar circumstances.
The report reveals that
Dogan, the 19-year-old US citizen of Turkish descent, was filming with a small
video camera on the top deck of the Mavi Marmara when he was shot twice in the
head, once in the back and in the left leg and foot and that he was shot in the
face at point blank range while lying on the ground.
The report says
Dogan had apparently been "lying on the deck in a conscious or semi-conscious,
state for some time" before being shot in his face.
The forensic
evidence that establishes that fact is "tattooing around the wound in his face,"
indicating that the shot was "delivered at point blank range" The report
describes the forensic evidence as showing that "the trajectory of the wound,
from bottom to top, together with a vital abrasion to the left shoulder that
could be consistent with the bullet exit point, is compatible with the shot
being received while he was lying on the ground on his
back."
Based on both "forensic and firearm evidence," the
fact-finding panel concluded that Dogan's killing and that of five Turkish
citizens by the Israeli troops on the Mavi Marmari May 31 "can be characterized
as extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions." (See Report [.pdf] Page 38,
Section 170)
The report confirmed what the Obama administration already
knew from the autopsy report on Dogan, but the administration has remained
silent about the killing of Dogan, which could be an extremely difficult
political problem for the administration in its relations with
Israel.
The Turkish government gave the autopsy report on Dogan to the US
Embassy in July and it was then passed on to the Department of Justice,
according to a US government source who spoke on condition of anonymity because
of the administration's policy of silence on the matter. The source said the
purpose of obtaining the report was to determine whether an investigation of the
killing by the Justice Department (DOJ) was appropriate.
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Asked by this writer whether the DOJ had received the autopsy
report on Dogan, DOJ spokesperson Laura Sweeney refused to comment.
The
administration has not volunteered any comment on the fact-finding mission
report and was not asked to do so by any news organization. Although the
report's revelations and conclusions about the killing of Dogan and the five
other victims were widely reported in the Turkish media last week, not a single
story on the report has appeared in US news media.
The administration has
made it clear through its inaction and its explicit public posture that it has
no intention of pressing the issue of the murder of a US citizen in cold blood
by Israeli commandos.
On June 13, two weeks after the Mavi Marmara
attack, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs issued a statement saying that
Israel "should be allowed to undertake an investigation into events that involve
its national security" and that Israel's military justice system "meets
international standards and is capable of conducting a serious and credible
investigation."
Another passenger whom forensic evidence shows was killed
execution-style, according to the OHCHR report, is Ibrahim Bilgen, a 60-year-old
Turkish citizen. Bilgen is believed by forensics experts to have been shot
initially from the helicopter above the Mavi Marmara and then shot in the side
of the head while lying seriously wounded.
The fact-finding mission was
given forensic evidence that, after the initial shot in chest from above, Bilgen
was shot in the head with a "soft baton round at such close proximity that an
entire bean bag and its wadding penetrated the skull and lodged in the chest
from above," the mission concluded.
"Soft baton rounds" are supposed to
be fired for nonlethal purposes at a distance and aimed only at the stomach, but
are lethal when fired at the head, especially from close range.
The
forensic evidence cited by the fact-finding mission on the killing of Dogan and
five other passengers came from both the autopsy reports and pathology reports
done by forensic personnel in Turkey and from interviews with those who wrote
the reports. Experts in forensic pathology and firearms assisted the mission in
interpreting that forensic evidence.
The account, provided by the OHCHR
of the events on board the Mavi Marmara on its way to help break the economic
siege of Gaza May 31 of this year, refutes the version of events aggressively
pushed by the Israeli military and supports the testimony of passengers on
board.
The report suggests that, from the beginning, Israeli policy
viewed the Gaza flotilla as an opportunity to use lethal force against pro-Hamas
activists. It quotes testimony by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak before the
Israeli government's Turkel Committee that specific orders were given by the
Israeli government "to continue intelligence tracking of the flotilla organizers
with an emphasis on the possibility that amongst the passengers in the flotilla
there were terror elements who would attempt to harm Israeli forces."
The
idea that the passenger list would be seeded with terrorists determined to
attack Israeli defense forces appears to have been a ploy to justify treating
the operation as likely to require the use of military force against the
passengers.
When details of the Israeli plan to forcibly take over the
ships in the flotilla were published in the Israeli press on May 30, the
passengers on board the Mavi Marmara realized that the Israelis might use deadly
force against them. Some leaders of the IHH (the Foundation for Human Rights and
Freedoms and Humanitarian Aid), which had purchased the ships for the mission,
were advocating defending the boat against the Israeli boarding attempt, whereas
other passengers advocated nonviolence only.
That led to efforts to
create improvised weapons from railings and other equipment on the Mavi Marmara.
However, the commission concluded that there was no evidence of any firearms
having being taken aboard the ship, as charged by Israel.
The report
notes that the Israeli military never communicated a request by radio to inspect
the cargo on board any of the ships, apparently contradicting the official
justification given by the Israeli government for the military attack on the
Mavi Marmara and other ships of preventing any military contraband from reaching
Gaza.
According to the OHCHR report, Israeli Chief of General Staff Gabi
Ashkenazi testified to the Turkel Committee August 11 that the initial rules of
engagement for the operation prohibited live fire except in life-threatening
situations, but that that they were later modified to target protesters "deemed
to be violent" in response to the resistance by passengers.
That decision
apparently followed the passengers' successful repulsion of an Israeli effort to
board the ship from Zodiac boats.
The report confirms that, from the
beginning of the operation, passengers were fired on by helicopters flying above
the Mavi Marmara to drop commandos on the deck.
Contrary to Israeli
claims that one or more Israeli troops were wounded by firearms, the report says
no medical evidence of a gunshot wound to an Israeli soldier was
found.
The OHCHR report confirms accounts from passengers on the Mavi
Marmara that defenders subdued roughly ten Israeli commandos, took their weapons
from them and threw them in the sea, except for one weapon hidden as evidence.
The Israeli soldiers were briefly sequestered below and some were treated for
wounds before being released by the defenders.
The OHCHR fact-finding
mission will certainly be the most objective, thorough and in-depth inquiry into
the events on board the Mavi Marmara and other ships in the flotilla of the four
that have been announced.
The fact-finding mission was chaired by Judge
Karl T. Hudson-Phillips, Q.C., retired judge of the International Criminal Court
and former attorney general of Trinidad and Tobago, and included Sir Desmond de
Silva, Q.C. of the United Kingdom, former chief prosecutor of the United
Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone and Ms. Mary Shanthi Dairiam of
Malaysia, founding member of the board of directors of the International Women's
Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific.
The mission interviewed 112
eyewitnesses to the Israeli attack in London, Geneva, Istanbul and Amman,
Jordan. The Israeli government refused to cooperate with the fact-finding
mission by making personnel involved in both planning and carrying out the
attack available to be interviewed.
The Turkish governments announced its
own investigation of the Israeli attack on August 10. UN Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon announced the formation of a "Panel of Inquiry" on August 2, but its
mandate was much more narrowly defined. It was given the mission to "receive and
review the reports of the national investigations with the view to recommending
ways of avoiding similar incidents in the future."