The State Prosecutor's Office has turned down a request to reopen the 2003 investigation of police officers who killed Moursi Jabali, an Arab Israeli from Taibeh.

The state last weekend informed the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel that it found no reason to overturn the decision by the Justice Ministry's Police Investigation Unit (PIU) to close the case for "lack of guilt," and said that "the shooting was justified."

Adala announced plans to petition the High Court of Justice against the prosecution and PIU. "Not bringing to trial a police officer who opened fatal fire is a green light to continue hurting Arab citizens," the organization argued.

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Since the October 2000 riots, 12 Arab citizens have been shot to death by police within Israel. During the same period, only one Jewish citizen was shot to death by officers. This year, two Arab citizens were killed by police, in January and July, and a resident of the territories was shot to death in Jaffa last week by Border Police. Only two cases of killing Arab citizens ended with a court conviction. Jabali's widow said Tuesday: "It's a principle. They killed him because he's Arab."

Jabali was shot in the back of the head on July 22, 2003, when police fired at the Subaru pickup truck in which he was traveling. Photographs of the damaged vehicle show the rear riddled by bullets, which penetrated the cabin. Nine bullets hit Jabali, one to his head. The driver, his friend Shihab Jaber, was hit in the shoulder. PIU ruled that, "The police officers' conduct did not deviate from the reasonable caution worthy of being taked under the circumstances of the case."

The background to the incident is crucial for understanding what unfolded. It happened at the edge of Taibeh, on the road leading to Tulkarm, in the West Bank. The shooting took place before construction of the separation fence in the area, and the road was used for passage between Israel and the territories. About an hour before the incident, police received warning that a terror cell was making its way into Israel for a suicide bombing, possibly traveling in a vehicle similar to the one used by Jabali and Jaber.

The vehicle aroused the officers' suspicion because of erratic driving: It left a local coffee shop and briefly drove against traffic, because of changes to the road at that point. Then the car made a U-turn and drove toward the town.

The main dispute between the police and witnesses relates to the warning given. The lawmen claimed that they ordered the driver to stop, using their loudspeaker system, siren, shouting and shots in the air. Eyewitnesses and Jaber himself cast great doubt on the possibility that the driver heard the warnings. A burst of bullets from several weapons was fired at the departing vehicle. One bullet hit Jabali's head, killing him on the spot. Jaber ducked beneath the steering wheel. His car stopped at some point and he got out and fled into Taibeh. "If he hadn't run away, they would have killed him too," his brother Mohammed told Haaretz yesterday.

Jabali was killed on his wedding anniversary, leaving his widow Magham, then 23, to raise their 2-year-old daughter alone. Magham said yesterday that she follows all the killings of Israeli Arabs and that nothing has changed. "There is no end to this phenomenon, and it proves the racism that exists. They shoot us like birds," she said.

Magham claims she was not accorded widow status at the National Insurance Institute and received no compensation for her husband's killing, which left her dependent on charity from either family or the Islamic Movement.

The prosecution said that one of the officers feared for his life, in view of the pin-point alert that came in before the incident. "Under these circumstances, there was ostensible justification for the shooting," the announcement read. Thus, the departing vehicle continued to be life-threatening because there was a real concern it contained a suicide bomber. "Shooting at the vehicle in order to make it stop did not, on the face of it, constitute a criminal offense," the announcement stated.

Adala claims the passengers and vehicle did not pose a threat to the police, so the shooting was unjustified and an illegal use of firearms. The group plans to press its case in a High Court suit.