A court in Jerusalem has convicted two Israeli minors in the killing of a 16-year-old Palestinian boy last year. One teen claimed he stayed in the vehicle as Abu Khdeir was burned to death.
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The judge determined that the two accomplices, whose names were not released, beat Abu Khdeir unconscious in the vehicle while on the way to a forest where he was burned alive. The judges have said there is enough evidence to convict him but his lawyers filed a last-minute motion arguing he is insane and can not be held responsible.
Hussein Abu Khdeir, Muhammad’s father, who attended the hearings, has often said that he expected Ben-David would mount an insanity defense and that he feared Ben-David and his young relatives would be treated with leniency.
“I was in shock when the verdict was announced in court, I am still in shock now – I can’t really express it”.
According to figures in a U.N.-backed report issued in June, 2,251 Palestinians were killed during the hostilities, which included Hamas rockets fired into Israel and shelling into Gaza by Israeli gunners.
The teens have not been identified because they were minors at the time of the crime.
Ben David did not testify at trial, but last summer he admitted to carrying out the murder in revenge for the killing of the three Israeli teenagers. The confrontation evolved into the 50-day war in which more than 2,200 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, were killed, according to United Nations figures.
Damiri accused the Israeli government of seeking excuses to getting Israeli murderers not guilty although they confessed for committing these very bad crimes, adding that “this means that the government encourages settlers to commit crimes against the Palestinians”.
Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker, reporting from East Jerusalem, said there was a lot of anger among Palestinians over how the court had handled the case. There is no schedule for Ben David pending the court’s review of the psychiatric opinion of his insanity plea. For the many Palestinians following the trial, Ben-David’s delay is now overshadowing the significance of Monday’s two guilty findings.
US-backed peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel collapsed in April 2014 after nine months of fruitless meetings amid bitter recriminations and mutual blame.
“It made me relive my son’s murder, I went back to the time they burnt him – we haven’t had any justice for him and we won’t”, said Mohammed Abu Khdeir’s mother, Suha Abu Khdeir.
Hamas said Kerry’s statements are in favor of the Israeli army, committed atrocities against the Palestinians, saying “Kerry’s statements are unprecedented moral collapse”.
Prosecutor Uri Corb said Monday that the Abu Khdeir murder case was a stain on Israeli society.
It was the third radio station to be raided in recent weeks amid persistent Israeli claims that the recent wave of Palestinian terror attacks has been spurred by incitement against Israel in social and traditional media.
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While adult murder convicts generally get lengthy jail terms in Israel, comparable sentences are not mandatory for minors.
