An Israeli court today acquitted a police officer who shot and killed an autistic Palestinian man in 2020, ruling that the victim was mistaken for a militant and that the incident occurred under conditions of “unprecedented tension”.

Iyad al-Halaq, 32, was attending a school for special needs children where he was working as a volunteer when police chased him down and killed him – an incident that sparked protests and widespread condemnation amid Israeli-Palestinian violence.

In 2021, prosecutors filed manslaughter charges against the newly recruited police officer before the Jerusalem District Court. The latter is not named in the indictment and is described as a junior recruit in the paramilitary border guard, which relies heavily on reservists.

Judge Miriam Lobb expressed her condolences to the victim’s family as she acquitted the defendant based on what she described as a misidentification of Halak as a threat after he joined another police officer already in pursuit of the Palestinian.

“It cannot be ignored that militarized action is characterized by an unprecedented tension — a sense of uncertainty that surrounds every operation as one event follows the next,” the 70-page decision said.

Palestinians have long condemned what they say is brutal treatment by Israeli police and soldiers in East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.

“My son is buried in the cemetery and the killer is free and can roam. This is unfair,” Halak’s mother, Rana, said, clutching her head in her hands.

His father, Hairy, said he hoped to appeal to a higher court.

Israel’s Justice Ministry department, which oversees police investigations, said it would decide how to proceed after studying the verdict.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry also condemned the decision. “The so-called courts and judicial system in Israel are an integral part of the occupation system itself,” she said in a statement.

Israeli police say officers use force or open fire only when necessary and that they had suspected Halak — who ignored Jewish and Arabic warnings to stop and was wearing a COVID-19 mask — had a gun in Jerusalem’s Old City.

The unarmed Halak fled, prompting a pursuit in which an officer shot him in the legs and missed, and then the defendant fatally shot Halak in the stomach, the indictment states.