RAMALLAH, April 7 (JMCC) - A Palestinian man has been charged in the slaying of actor and activist Juliano Mer-Khamis in the Jenin refugee camp earlier this week,
reports AFP.
Mujahed Qaniri was arrested on Monday soon after the shooting, although his possible motives for killing the popular director of a local theater remain unclear.
Police sources told AFP that Qaniri, a camp resident who is in his 30s, had been charged with the murder after being identified in three separate line-ups by the baby-sitter, who was sitting in the car when he opened fire.
Friends and associates of Mer-Khamis said the woman, known only as Raida, had seen the killer's face before he opened fire, after which he donned a mask and fled.
The source said Qaniri once belonged to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah movement, and had spent at least five years in an Israeli jail.
Some sources said he had since joined Hamas, while others described him as independent who had spent five years in a Palestinian jail for supplying weapons to militants from the Islamist group.
In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri disavowed any connection with Qaniri.