Cape Town - The Al Jazeera Media Network has announced that it has assigned a dedicated legal team who will refer Shireen Abu Akleh's murder case to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
According to a statement released by the network on Thursday, it has formed a coalition consisting of international legal experts as well as its own legal team who will prepare a complete case dossier to be submitted to the Prosecutor of the ICC.
"According to Article 8 of the Charter of the International Criminal Court, targeting war correspondents, or journalists working in war zones or occupied territories by killing or physically assaulting them, is a war crime," read the statement.
"The Network vows to follow every path to achieve justice for Shireen, and ensure those responsible for her killing are brought to justice and held accountable in all international justice and legal platforms and courts," it said.
Abu Akleh was shot in the head while covering an Israeli military raid on the Palestinian refugee camp on May 11.
According to Xinhua News Agency, the Palestinian Authority (PA) announced on Thursday that its probe revealed that Abu Akleh was "deliberately" shot by an Israeli sniper, but Israel denounced this as a "lie".
"The only source of fire that targeted the journalists and killed her (Abu Akleh) was from the side where the Israeli forces were stationed in Jenin," PA General Prosecutor Akram al-Khatib told reporters at a news briefing at the Palestinian presidential headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
"One of the Israeli soldiers shot Abu Akleh in the head while she was trying to run and hide," he said, adding that "the shooting was directly and deliberately targeting the journalists present in the area."
IOL