Israeli judge to issue verdict in Rachel Corrie case

(Photo: Rachel Corrie Foundation)

Nearly a decade after the Israeli military killed Rachel Corrie, 23, with a weaponized Caterpillar D9 tractor, the civil suit filed by her family will finally close. The verdict will be announced on August 28, 2012 by a Haifa District judge. In attendance will be Rachel Corrie’s parents, Cindy and Craig, and sister Sarah Corrie Simpson.

Corrie was killed on March 16, 2003, while nonviolently protesting with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) against the demolition of a Palestinian home in Gaza. Following her death, an investigation ensued, and then closed without any charges filed. Dissatisfied with the lack of accountability and impunity, in 2005 Corrie’s parents filed a civil case against the state of Israel for “failure to conduct a full and credible investigation.”

Last week the Rachel Corrie Foundation released a press release on the upcoming wrongful death verdict:

The State of Israel claims the driver of the bulldozer did not see Rachel, that she should not have been in a war zone, and that a military police investigation found no wrongdoing. Four eyewitnesses from the International Solidarity Movement testified that Rachel was visible to soldiers in the bulldozer as it approached. According to the U.S. State Department, a thorough, credible, and transparent investigation was never conducted.

Oral testimony in the case began March 10, 2010. Over the past two years, there have been 15 court hearings at which 23 witnesses testified, producing more than 2,000 pages of court transcripts.

Oral testimony for the Corrie family’s lawsuit began in 2010.  During the second day of hearings, it was revealed that the doctor who conducted the Rachel Corrie’s autopsy kept pieces of her body for testing, without informing her family. The missing remains were never returned.