Jerusalem: Lawyers for a Bedouin Arab man killed during clashes in southern Israel announced yesterday they had filed a petition calling for his body to be returned.
Yacoub Abu Al Qiyan, 50, died in disputed circumstances on Wednesday when police raided the Bedouin village of Umm Al Hiran in order to demolish several homes.
An Israeli officer also died in what police said was an attack. The Adalah NGO, along with an Arab Israeli parliamentarian, filed a petition with Israel's Supreme Court calling for his body to be released immediately without preconditions.
Family members had been asked to agree to a number of stipulations before returning the body, their lawyer said.
"They want to give the body back only at night, and also to have only a limited number of people at the funeral -- 40-50 people only," Attorney Nadeem Shehadeh from the Adalah NGO said. They also demanded the funeral not take place in the Bedouin village of Umm Al Hiran, where Qiyan came from, but in the nearby town of Hura, Shehadeh said.
