Gunmen kill suspected spy for Israel in West Bank

[oberliner]

(Reuters) - Masked gunmen shot dead a West Bank man previously jailed as a suspected spy for Israel, the second apparent vigilante killing of a suspected spy this month, Palestinian security sources said on Saturday.

The sources identified the victim as Omar Helwan, 32, of Beit Dajan village near Nablus and said he had previously been held in a Palestinian prison on charges of working as an Israeli agent. Palestinian police were investigating, they added.

On May 6, a 30-year-old Palestinian man that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's security services had sought to arrest on suspicion of being an Israeli informant was killed by gunmen outside the hub city of Ramallah.

Palestinian militants have a tradition of inflicting vigilante punishments on people accused of collaboration with the Jewish state. During a Palestinian uprising which began in 2000, militants publicly executed people accused of tipping off Israeli security forces about the whereabouts of wanted men

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/21/us-palestinians-israel-violence-idUSTRE74K1O220110521