Convictions upheld for Israelis in murder of Palestinian teen
JERUSALEM: Israel’s supreme court yesterday rejected an appeal by three members of a Jewish gang convicted of kidnapping, beating and burning alive a Palestinian teenager in 2014.
The decision upholds life sentences for two of them and a 21-year jail term for the third over the chilling attack that was part of a spiral of violence ahead of the 2014 Gaza war.
Israeli settler Yosef Haim BenDavid was convicted of leading the assault on Mohammed Abu Khdeir, 16, that shocked Israelis and Palestinians alike.
The two others have not been named since they were minors — 16 — at the time of the crime. BenDavid, whose claim of insanity was rejected, was 31 when he was sentenced to life in May 2016.
Abu Khdeir’s father welcomed the court’s decision, but again called for the assailants’ homes to be demolished as Israel routinely does for Palestinian attackers.
“These people are like Nazis,” Hussein Abu Khdeir told journalists outside the courtroom after the decision was announced.
Abu Khdeir’s killing was part of a spiral of violence that led to a 50-day war in the Gaza Strip in summer 2014.
He was kidnapped from Israeliannexed east Jerusalem on July 2, 2014 and beaten, with his burned body found hours later in a forest in the western part of the city.
A forensic report showed smoke in his lungs, indicating he was alive when set alight.
It was seen as revenge for the killing of Israelis Naftali Frenkel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrach, who were abducted from a hitchhiking stop near the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron. — AFP