Body of Alessandro Parini, killed in Tel Aviv terror ramming, transferred to Italy
Victim’s coffin is flown to Rome after small ceremony at airport with ambassador, Foreign Ministry officials
The body of a tourist killed in a Tel Aviv car-ramming last week was transferred back to Italy on Tuesday.
Alessandro Parini, a 35-year-old lawyer from Rome, was killed Friday when, according to law enforcement officials, Yousef Abu Jaber rammed his car at high speed into a group of people on Kaufmann Street, leaving a trail of carnage along several hundred meters and into the adjacent Charles Clore Park, a popular seaside promenade.
Seven others were injured — all tourists from Italy and the United Kingdom.
Parini’s coffin was transferred during a small ceremony at Ben Gurion Airport in the presence of Italian Ambassador Sergio Barbanti and officials from the Foreign Ministry.
It was received in Rome by his relatives, as well as officials including Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.
His body arrived around the same time that British-Israeli terror victim Lucy Dee was buried, less than 48 hours after the burial of her two daughters Maia and Rina. The three were shot and killed in an ambush by Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank, hours before the ramming that killed Parini.
On Sunday it was reported that officials at the Institute of Forensic Medicine have completed an initial autopsy of the body of the suspected Tel Aviv attacker, with preliminary findings strengthening suspicions that the car ramming was a terror attack.
Medical officials have ruled out that Abu Jaber, 45, an Israeli citizen and father of six from Kafr Qassem, suffered a stroke, Channel 12 reported. Further testing will investigate the possibility Abu Jaber was under the influence of drugs, alcohol, or that he suffered another medical condition at the time of the incident.
Members of Abu Jaber’s family have insisted the incident must have been a car accident, possibly following a heart attack. However, police sources confirmed that the incident was indeed a terror attack and not a traffic accident, the Haaretz daily said Sunday.
A spokesperson for the Shin Bet security agency, which is leading the investigation, had earlier told The Times of Israel that the car-ramming was being investigated as a terror attack.
Abu Jaber had no known prior security offenses.
Abu Jaber’s vehicle overturned after the ramming and a police officer and municipal inspectors who were near the scene approached and opened fire on Abu Jaber, killing him. Police had claimed they saw Abu Jaber, “reach [for] a rifle-like object that was with him” before shooting.
Law enforcement sources later told Hebrew-language media that the object was a toy gun. However, they have not distributed any images of the purported replica weapon.
Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.
