Global Briefs

By JTA May 21, 2015, 3:46 pm 0 Edit

Investigation into politician’s suicide finds no anti-Semitic smear campaign

Investigators found no evidence of an anti-Semitic smear campaign against a Missouri gubernatorial candidate who committed suicide.

Tom Schweich, the state auditor, shot himself in the head on Feb. 26 shortly after telling journalists that a fellow party member was leading a whisper campaign saying he was Jewish. Schweich, who attended an Episcopal church, reportedly had a Jewish grandfather.

Police Detective Lt. Don Bass told the St. Louis Dispatch on May 13 that the case is now closed and that Schweich’s work computers in St. Louis and Jefferson City contained “nothing related to a suicide note, malfeasance in the Auditor’s office or … anything of evidentiary value.”

Missouri GOP Chairman John Hancock has denied Schweich’s charges of anti-Semitism against him.

In March, at a memorial service for Schweich, former U.S. Senator John Danforth called the alleged anti-Semitism “worse than anything in my memory.”

White House officials met with beaten Palestinian-American teen

White House officials met with a Palestinian-American teen beaten by an Israeli police officer.

National Security Council staffers met April 15 with Tariq Khdeir and his family, CNN reported last week.

A cell phone video caught the policeman beating Khdeir, then 15, during protests last summer in eastern Jerusalem, although he was not resisting arrest.

“The U.S. government has remained closely engaged with Tariq and his family since his return from Jerusalem,” a White House official told CNN.

Khdeir, of Tampa, Fla., was released from Israeli custody after U.S. intervention. A policeman has been charged in his beating.

He was beaten during protests after Mohammed Abu Khdeir, his cousin, also 15, was burned to death by Jewish extremists in a revenge killing for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens.

The family plans to return to Jerusalem this summer. Tariq’s mother, Suha, asked U.S. officials to pressure Israel to leave him alone while he is visiting.