Dichter to police: Demolish home of Jerusalem yeshiva terrorist

Haaretz 17:19 12/03/2008

By Jonathan Lis and Shahar Ilan, Haaretz Correspondents

Public Security Minister Avi Dichter instructed police on Wednesday to demolish the house belonging to the family of the Israeli Arab terrorist who gunned down eight yeshiva students in Jerusalem last Thursday. The house is located in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber. Following the order, police asked the Defense Ministry to examine the legality of the move, and to consider an alternative option of sealing the house.

"I very much hope that in the end that legal establishment will allow us to carry out [the demolition], but without it, nothing can be done," Dichter said at a Knesset session. Alaa Abu Dhaim, the gunman, killed seven teenage boys and one 26-year-old, as well as wounding nine others, when he burst into the Mercaz Harav seminary in Jerusalem's Kiryat Moshe neighborhood and opened fire in the library. Dichter also said that police have not destroyed the mourning tent erected for the terrorist since the tent itself is not an offense, and "therefore no [law] enforcement is needed." "I don't suppose the MKs want to live according to Jordanian law," he said, referring to Jordan's refusal last week to allow Abu Dhaim's family to erect a public mourning tent for him in Amman. Dichter maintained that the police are acting according to authorized legal opinions, and not according to their desires and wishes. "Law enforcement is needed when the law is violated. The mourning tent was not taken down because according to the law it cannot be destroyed. I do not recommend interpreting the word 'identification' [with terror] in any other way than the law allows."