And the two guilty verdicts Monday certainly did not put the older Abu Khdeir at peace with his son’s gruesome death.
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Two Israeli youths were convicted of last year’s murder of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir by a Jerusalem court on Monday while delaying the verdict for the ringleader, Yosef Haim Ben David, following an 11th-hour insanity plea.
But the victim’s family fears that the killers will yet escape any real punishment.
“The lawyers of the suspect have delayed his final verdict”.
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.
On Thursday, Ben David’s lawyer submitted a psychiatric evaluation claiming again that he was not responsible for his actions at the time of the murder.
Abu Khdeir was burned to death by Israeli extremists in revenge for the killings of three Israeli teens in the West Bank.
Following the announcement that the Israeli teenagers’ bodies had been found, Israeli politicians made repeated calls for revenge. An autopsy, carried out by Israeli doctors in Tel Aviv and attended by a Palestinian forensic expert, revealed that over 90 percent of the boy’s skin was burned and he suffered a head injury. Mr Ben David chose to not testify.
The two minors were 16 years old at the time of the crime, according to attorney Avi Himi, who is representing one of the youths.
The judge determined that Ben David drove the auto while his two accomplices beat Abu Khdeir unconscious in the back seat.
While he was living, before a match lit and set him on fire among the minors helped douse Mohammad Abu Khdair, they added.
“If they were Arabs, their homes would have been demolished immediately”.
Prosecutor Uri Corb said yesterday that the Abu Khdeir case was a stain on Israeli society. I am afraid that the court will release them (suspects) in the end. His killing came less than a month after Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaer, and Eyal Yifrah were similarly abducted and killed on their way home in the occupied West Bank. It said in a statement that “the decision shows that the Israeli government is a partner with the murderers in the crimes committed against the Palestinian people”. But more visits by Jewish religious activists and ultra-nationalist Israeli politicians to the complex, where two biblical temples once stood, have done little to convince Palestinians. The Israeli human rights law firm Yesh Din reported earlier this year only 1.7% of settlers are indicted for acts of violence against Palestinians and their property.
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This contrasts sharply with the abuses Israel routinely practices against Palestinian children living under occupation in the West Bank who are subjected to torture, solitary confinement, harsh interrogation and military tribunals.
