An Israeli police officer was acquitted on Thursday of manslaughter charges brought against him after he shot and killed an unarmed autistic Palestinian in Jerusalem in 2020, AFP reported.

Iyad Hallak, 32, was killed on May 30, 2020 by this police officer in the Old City of East Jerusalem, an area occupied and annexed by Israel since 1967.

The policeman who shot him, whose name has not been released, was acquitted of manslaughter by the Jerusalem District Court.

He “made an inadvertent mistake in believing that he was dealing with an armed terrorist who posed a real danger,” the court said in a ruling released Thursday, adding that the accused was “repentant.”

Iyad Hallaq’s behavior that day raised the suspicion of border police officers, who approached him and yelled at him to stop, prompting him to flee, according to the ruling.

According to his relatives, the man was on his way to school in the old city, and witnesses said that the screams of the police caused him to panic.

Pursued by the police, Iyad Hallaq was first shot in the leg by the pursuing policeman, the court ruled. The same policeman then shot him in the chest after the Palestinian stood up, pointing at a woman he knew, who rushed to the scene.

“My son is now in his grave, and his murderer is freed and will rejoice. It’s all extremely unfair,” Iyad Hallak’s mother, Rana Hallak, told AFP, without specifying whether the family plans to appeal to Israel’s Supreme Court, as they have the option to do so.

The death of Iyad Hallaq sparked outrage among Palestinians just days after George Floyd was killed by an American police officer in the United States.

On Arab social networks, the slogan #PalestinianLivesMatter (“Palestinian lives matter”) intersected with the anti-racism movement #Blacklivesmatter.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack as an “execution”. Expressing his condolences to the family, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the death of Iyad Hallak a “tragedy”.​​