Zero tolerance for stone-throwing: Three residents of the northern village of Bir al-Machsur, just off Highway 79, were sentences to lengthy jail terms Tuesday after being convicted of stoning cars.
Haifa District Court Judge Oded Gershon ruled that the court "must not be lenient on such offenses," and ordered sentences raging from 15 to 21 months.
According to the indictment, Ibrahim Gadir (24), Rami Hujirat (23) and a minor who cannot be named stoned cars along Highway 79, damaging at least two of them.
A plea bargain struck between the Haifa District Prosecution and the defense had the tree plead guilty to malicious endangerment – a felony carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years.
The prosecution proceeded to present the court with statistics about stone-throwing incidents in the area between 2006 and 2008 – data which prompted the court to cite the "alarming ordinariness of the phenomenon."
The defense stressed that the incident was criminal and not nationalistically motivated: "This was an act of mischievous youths, who failed to think about the ramifications of their actions."
The court, however, was less than impressed: "Hurling a rock at a moving vehicle is an extremely dangerous act, which can result in the death of the passengers..This court can show no lenience in the matter. The defendant's punishment must deter others."
Gadir, the only one of the three to have a prior criminal record, was sentenced to 21 months in prison. Hujirat was sentences to 18 months in jail, and the unnamed minor was sentenced to 15 months.