Israeli court shields reservist who ran over American activist
Bulldozer driver testifies that he remembers little about fatal 2003 incident.
The bulldozer driver who crushed to death U.S. activist Rachel Corrie seven years ago struggled Thursday to recall her name.
"It's Rachel-something," he testified in a Haifa courtroom. "Carrie?"
The former Israeli reservist's courtroom appearance, his first public comments since the college student's 2003 death, was expected to be the climax of the Corrie family's long-running civil lawsuit against the Israeli government. But during more than four hours of testimony, the 38-year-old Russian immigrant, speaking from behind a screen to hide his identity, said he remembered little about that day and the young woman he ran over.
He said he thought she was American. But he noted that he never followed the news coverage of Corrie's death and only learned six months ago he would have to testify in the family's wrongful-death lawsuit.
Israel's government has maintained that Rachel Corrie and her fellow international activists were responsible for the incident, saying protesters entered a "war zone" and put themselves at risk by attempting to prevent Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip. A military inquiry concluded no disciplinary actions should be taken against the driver.
Corrie's parents, Craig and Cindy Corrie, said the vague, sometimes flippant, responses by the man, identified only as Y, were hard to take.
"He sounds like he has not given much thought to this in the past seven years," said Cindy Corrie. "That's hard to hear, since for us, Rachel is in every day, every hour, every moment. How could you not remember the time of day? If I killed somebody, I would surely know when it happened."
Cindy Corrie questioned whether the screen was intended to protect the driver's security or to allow him to avoid facing the family.
"They don't want him to have to look at us," she said. "That's the point, isn't it? The state is protecting soldiers from having to come face to face with the acts they committed and the people they've impacted. Israel is hiding behind that screen."