Israeli court: Palestinian teen murder ringleader sane
Date
4/19/2016 9:20:15 AM
(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) An Israeli man was convicted of being the ringleader in the kidnapping and murder of a Palestinian teen after a court rejected his last-minute insanity plea on Tuesday.
The Jerusalem District Court scheduled the sentencing for Yossef Ben David for May and is expected to give him a life sentence for murdering 16-year-old Muhammad Abu Khdeir in July 2014 the Times of Israel reported.
The Abu Khdeir family's lawyer Muhannet Jabbara told Anadolu Agency: "Already the court convicted him of killing and today it decided that he is mentally eligible and on May 3 the court will decide his sentence."
In November two minors were given a life sentence and 21 years in prison but Ben David escaped sentencing after he pleaded insanity in the final stages of the case. The convicted minors said it was Ben David who encouraged them to kidnap Abu Khdeir from East Jerusalem's Shufat neighborhood.
The death of Abu Khdeir who was burned to death by his abductors triggered widespread clashes in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem and contributed to the tension that soon led to Israeli’s seven-week military onslaught on the blockaded Gaza Strip in which more than 2150 Palestinians were killed.
The convicted Israelis say they killed Abu Khdeir in revenge for the murder of three teenage Israeli settlers who had been found dead one day earlier after being kidnapped in the West Bank.
By Kaamil Ahmed
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