Head of the Shin Bet security agency Nadav Argaman reportedly forbade the Shin Bet investigator handling its probe of the Umm al-Hiran incident in 2016, in which a Bedouin man was fatally shot, from informing the Justice Ministry's Internal Investigations Department of her conclusion that Yacoub Abu al-Kiyan was not a terrorist, and that police officer Erez Levy had been run over accidentally, not in a car ramming attack, Israel Hayom has learned.
On Tuesday evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a formal apology to Al-Kiyan's family, and stated that the government had determined that he was not a terrorist.
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High-ranking Shin Bet officials who were scrambled to the scene questioned police officers, Al-Kiyan's relatives, and other officials. They determined that there were no indications that Al-Kiyan had intentionally driven his car toward Levy out of terrorist motives and that he had no connection with the Islamic State, and informed the police of their conclusions.
However, the Israel Police declared the incident a terrorist attack, and now it appears that not only Alsheikh, but also senior officials in the Shin Bet – including Argaman – prevented the representative who had been at the scene from giving the Internal Investigations Department her version of the events.
Israel Hayom has also learned that a report determining that the Al-Hiran incident was not a terrorist attack was delivered to Meir Ben-Shabbat, then a district coordinator for the Shin Bet and currently head of the National Security Council. Ben-Shabbat did not sign off on it, leaving the status of the incident as "under investigation," although no investigation was ongoing at that point.
In May 2018, the Internal Investigations Unit decided not to try the police officers who shot and killed Al-Kiyan, stating that the Shin Bet had said it was "unable to determine whether the incident was a terrorist attack or not."
Prior to being appointed police commissioner, Alsheikh had a long career in the Shin Bet.
A source close to the affair told Israel Hayom: "It's just astonishing. Senior Shin Bet officials are defending their colleague … They buried the opinion that it wasn't a terrorist attack. The Internal Investigations Unit didn't know it existed! I don't know how they sleep at night."
The Shin Bet said in response to the allegations: "As we have stated in the past, the Shin Bet cooperated fully and gave the Internal Investigations Unit all the material pertaining to the incident."
As of Wednesday morning, no response from Alsheikh himself was available.
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