Arab MKs blast Jewish Duma terrorist at sentencing hearing
Five Joint List Israeli-Arab MKs led by Ahmad Tibi blasted the Jewish terrorist who perpetrated the 2015 arson murders of three Palestinians in Duma during his sentencing hearing at the Lod District Court on Tuesday.
Calling out “you burned a family... have you no shame?” the MKs exchanged jibes with supporters of Amiram Ben-Uliel, including Orian Ben-Uliel, his wife, who responded, “they manufactured a case” against her husband since no one caught the real murderers.
On May 18, the Lod District Court convicted Ben-Uliel of the terror arson murders on the Dawabshe family home which killed 18-month-old Ali and his parents, Sa’ad and Riham, and destabilized Israeli-Arab relations throughout the region.
The prosecution demanded multiple life-in-prison sentences.
The defense asked for leniency, noting that there was one act not three separate acts and noting that Ben-Uliel was given enhanced interrogation by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency).
Moreover, the defense cross-examined family members of the Dawabshes to try to show potential connections to Hamas. Ultimately, the court said this was not relevant to sentencing BenUliel.
But given a triple murder conviction, the defense is placing most of its faith in an eventual appeal once the sentence is handed down.
In May, judges Ruth Lorch, Tsvi Dotan and Dvora Atar also convicted Ben-Uliel of two separate counts of attempted murder and two separate counts of arson, but acquitted BenUliel of membership in a terror group.
Despite that acquittal, the court also declared that Ben-Uliel had murdered the Palestinians for ideological reasons – something that could lead to a harsher sentence or to preventing lenient treatment at some later date.
Asher Ohayon, the lead lawyer for Ben-Uliel, vowed in May to appeal to the Supreme Court, saying the court had wrongfully accepted confessions given post-torture.
The court said that even though it disqualified confessions Ben-Uliel gave when the Shin Bet used enhanced interrogation on him, his confessions 36 hours later were given freely and compellingly.
Furthermore, the court said it was convinced by Ben-Uliel’s voluntary physical reconstruction of the crime at the scene of the murders.
In addition, the court cited Ben-Uliel’s refusal to testify in his own defense.
The court wrote that, “The defendant described the scene of the crime in extreme detail in his confessions… which was later clarified to be meticulously accurate… the defendant carried out a reconstruction with great accuracy and which was close to identical to his confessions – something which rebuts the claims” that he was guessing or tipped off in the moment by the Shin Bet investigators.
Ohayon responded to a question from The Jerusalem Post about the fact that the Supreme Court has been very accepting of enhanced interrogation confessions during the last three years, saying there was no parallel.
He also said Ben-Uliel had been “tortured far worse than any Palestinian.”
The Dawabshe family responded to the decision saying it is important for justice to be done so “no one else’s lives will be ruined” and destroyed like the three murdered Dawabshes.
Supporters for Ben-Uliel yelled at the court, “How can you convict an innocent person?” requiring them to be silenced by security guards.
The sentencing arguments hearing was set for June 9 and it is expected that the actual sentencing will occur later in the summer or the early fall.
For months after the murder, the Shin Bet performed a massive manhunt and investigation, but turned up empty-handed.
Former Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen told the Post that he has fundamentally altered the entire approach toward Jewish terrorism against Palestinians, taking a much harder stance and investing far more resources.