Side-by-side graves of the slain teens. Photo: Channel 2/Screenshot.

JNS.org – The Israeli legal NGO Shurat HaDin has written a request to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder that calls for the extradition of Turkey-based Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri to stand trial for June’s murder of three Israeli teens. One of the teens, Naftali Frenkel, was an American citizen.

“Turkish authorities cannot allow a statement by a senior Hamas terrorist condoning and taking responsibility for the kidnapping and murder of innocent teenage boys announced on Turkish soil, and at the same time claim that Turkey is a humane country,” Shurat HaDin founder Nitsana Darshan-Leitner said in the letter.

“We are confident that an investigation into the evidence of the kidnapping and murder of Frenkel will result in a strong foundation for the indictment and extradition of senior Hamas leader al-Arouri from Turkey,” the letter added.

In a video recording of a conference in Istanbul, al-Arouri all but confirmed that Hamas was behind the kidnapping and murder of the three teens.

“There was much speculation about this operation, some said it was a conspiracy,” al-Arouri told a group of delegates from the International Union of Islamic Scholars, according to a video posted online by the group’s organizers.

“The popular will was exercised throughout our occupied land, and culminated in the heroic operation by the Qassam Brigades in imprisoning the three settlers in Hebron,” he said, referring to the Hamas wing’s kidnapping of the Israeli teens.