RAMALLAH, July 3 (Xinhua) -- A senior Palestinian official said Saturday that the bullet which killed veteran Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in May had been handed to a U.S. team for examination.
The bullet won't be handed to the Israeli authorities and the competent Palestinian authorities have agreed to hand it to the United States, Palestinian Attorney-General Akram Al-Khatib told the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.
That followed a Palestinian probe in May, which said Abu Akleh was "deliberately" shot by an Israeli sniper but was denounced by Israel as "a blatant lie." Israel has requested Palestine to hand over the bullet for a joint investigation, but was refused.
"We agreed to allow a specialized U.S. team of experts to conduct a technical examination of the bullet and the bullet has been handed over to the team who recently arrived in the country for this purpose," Al-Khatib said.
The examination will be conducted at the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, he added.
Abu Akleh, a 51-year-old Al Jazeera journalist who was born in Jerusalem, was killed by a live bullet in the head on May 11 while covering an Israeli army incursion into the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, which has drawn widespread Palestinian, Arab and international condemnation.
In June, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki met International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan in The Hague and handed him the result of the Palestinian investigation into Abu Akleh's death.
