Sentencing three Jerusalemite children and prisoner Ja’abees
The District Court sentenced on Monday three Jerusalemite children and 32-year old Isra’ Ja’abees.
Ahmad Manasra
The judge sentenced the child Ahmad Manasra for 12 years of actual imprisonment and imposed a 180-thousand NIS fine on him as compensation to the two settlers who were injured in the incident (80 thousand NIS for the 21-year old settler and 100 thousand NIS for the 12-year old settler).
The District Court convicted Manasra of two murder attempts and possession of a knife. Ahmad stabbed two settlers along with his cousin Martyr Hasan Manasra in the settlement of Pisgat Ze’ev in October 2015.
He was arrested while bleeding in the streets of the settlement after being critically injured as he was run-over and assaulted by settlers. He was also verbally assaulted while lying on the ground and was not provided with any kind of treatment despite his urgent need for it. After several days in Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital, he was transferred to an internal institution in “Yarka” in the city of Akko. These institutions are similar to prisons and children arrested for security cases are detained and treated differently from the rest of the detainees. A video was leaked from the interrogation room where Manasra was being interrogated. The video showed that extent of psychological pressure and intimidation Manasra was subject to during the interrogation in order to extract confessions. The interrogator was yelling and insulting the divine self in order to provoke Manasra. During the interrogation, they showed him videos of him and his cousin Hasan and the interrogation was focused on him confessing to carrying out a stabbing attack against settlers. Ahmad cried a lot during the interrogations and insisted on not remembering anything about the incident; the interrogators continued questioning him for several hours despite crying.
Sentencing Isra’ Ja’abees
The court also sentenced the Jerusalemite prisoner Isra’ Ja’abees for 11 years of actual imprisonment and 20 thousand NIS as compensation to the policeman who was injured while arresting her.
The court convicted Ja’abees with attempting to kill Israelis by exploding a gas cylinder as she set it on fire before reaching Al-Z’ayem checkpoint in Jerusalem. Fire broke out in her vehicle which led to the injury of a policeman while arresting her.
Sentencing the children Taha and Khalil
The lawyer of Prisoner’s Club in Jerusalem, Mufeed Al-Hajj, explained that the District judges sentenced 15-year old Mohammad Taha and 17-year old Munther Khalil for 11 years of actual imprisonment after convicting them of “attempt-murder”. The judge also imposed a 50-thousand NIS fine on each of them as compensation to the injured settler.
Al-Hajj explained that the children were arrested at the end of last January from the area of Damascus Gate and were accused of stabbing a settler in the area.
