The two Israeli youths were found guilty of murder while their 31-year-old ringleader, Yosef Haim Ben David, has turned in a claim of insanity. “I’m afraid that the court will eventually get them off the hook”, he was quoted as saying by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
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Suha spoke to reporters while staring at the floor of her home, still absorbing the verdict delivered in the District Court in Jerusalem. “The lawyer representing the murderers was screaming at the judge and mocking him”, said Aisha Abu Khdeir, an aunt of Mohammed.
Israeli forces have killed 96 Palestinians, many of whom were carrying out assaults and others in clashes with police and troops.
His death led to days of rioting in Palestinian areas and – along with murder of three Israeli teenagers – helped spark last year’s war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. A cousin, Hassan Abu Khdeir, said he had hope the court would convict all three.
Footage captured on surveillance camera showed a auto pulling up outside the mosque and the teenager being pushed into the vehicle.
The court heard he was then beaten and had petrol poured down his throat, before being set alight.
Abu Khudair’s family, fellow Palestinians and Israeli Arabs decried the delay as a miscarriage of justice. The three Jewish settlers were arrested a few days after the killing and confessed, re-enacting the murder in the forest where his body was found.
The attack was one of two this year to roil not only Palestinian, but Israeli, society, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu comes under increasing domestic and global pressure to treat Israelis suspected of crimes against Palestinians more harshly, as decades-old complaints over unfair treatment of Palestinians in the legal system fuel an ongoing wave of violence in the country.
At the beginning of the trial this summer, one of the teenage suspects, whose identities have not been released, described the grisly killing of Muhammad.
Additional hearings will be held to decide the admissibility and relevance of the Ben-David’s psychological claims.
Despite obvious displeasure with Ben-David’s counsel over the last-minute submission after the ruling had been written, the court said it would review the English document upon translation and pick up Ben-David’s case in three weeks.
Abu Khdeir’s father Hussein denounced the verdict, telling Israeli Army Radio that the trial was “a lie”. Of those, 56 are said by Israel to have been attackers. The court will further discuss his case on December 20, according to reports.
During the trial the two minors testified that it was Ben-David who persuaded them to kidnap Abu Khdeir.
“They said “we were playing karate” Aisha Abu Khdeir, 55, Mohammed’s Aunt said who saw the footage in court. “The verdict is a joke”. “We don’t want to see these people any more”.
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Album of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, dancing with his family’s debke troupe.
