State attorney orders probe into conduct of police on killing of Yuval Castleman

State Attorney Amit Aisman orders the Police Internal Investigations Department (PIID) to open an examination of the conduct of the investigative team dealing with the killing of Yuval Castleman, a civilian who was shot by an off-duty reserve soldier at the scene of a deadly terror attack in Jerusalem last month.

Aisman instructed the head of Israel Police Investigations and Intelligence Division, Superintendent Yigal Ben Shalom, not to conduct his own investigation, as was previously planned, until the PIID has completed its examination, the State Attorney’s Office says in a statement to the press.

An autopsy on Sunday found an M16 bullet and pieces of shrapnel in Castleman’s exhumed body, findings which were at odds with the Israel Police’s position immediately after the incident that there were no bullets left in Castleman’s body, and that such a procedure was unnecessary.

Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai told Ben Shalom to probe the new-found evidence and the overall handling of the investigation after the autopsy’s results, but PIID’s examination will now be conducted first.