Three of officers involved in affair (archives)
Photo: Dedi Lifshitz
Amran Abu Hamadiya
Reproduction photo
Court aggravates sentence of policeman who killed Palestinian
Supreme Court judges mention anti-Semitic pogroms in Europe when they send former Border Guard officer to eight and a half months in prison instead of six and a half. Man convicted of throwing 17-year-old boy from moving jeep
The Supreme Court on Tuesday accepted the State's appeal and aggravated the sentence of a former Border Guard officer who was accused of killing a Palestinian youth more than six years ago.
The officer, Yanai Lalza, escaped last summer before he was scheduled to serve his sentence, and was captured in Eilat more than a week later.
The former policeman, who was initially sentenced to six and a half months in prison by the District Court for throwing a 17-year-old boy out of a moving jeep, will be jailed for eight and a half months.
Guilty
Aviad Glickman
Jerusalem District Court finds fourth officer involved in 2002 kidnapping of 17-year-old Palestinian youth guilty. Policeman who filmed incident convicted of same offenses
"The abuse of the power of cold and fire arms which the defendant and his friends had as soldiers, in order to carry out a sadistic campaign of revenge against innocent people only due to their Arab descent, cannot but invoke historic periods of regression and remind us of dark anti-Semitic pogroms in Europe directed at innocent Jews as their victims," the judges said in the sentence.
Lalza was convicted of killing the youth and abusing other Palestinians. According to the indictment filed by the four policemen involved in the affair, in the four kidnapped Hebron resident Amran Abu Hamadiya and put him on a jeep.
During the drive they beat the youth and then hurled him out of the jeep, which was travelling in high speed.
Abu Hamadiya was thrown on the road, his head was strongly hit and he died on the spot. Immediately after throwing the youth, Lalza shouted, "He is dead! He is dead!" and the four abandoned the body and continued driving. One of them documented the entire incident with his video camera.
Following the incident, a commission of inquiry decided to immediately dismantle the Border Guard company which the four were members of. The company commander and his predecessor were dismissed.
In the new decision, the Supreme Court judges stated that "the deterrence and the denunciation of criminal acts of abuse by Israelis against Arabs due to their descent will not be conveyed sufficiently without such aggravation, particularly when those who do it are soldiers and policemen."
Despite Lalza's request that the court eases his punishment due to a post-traumatic disorder he had suffered from, the judges stressed that "the defendant's behavior throughout the trial did not reveal any internalization, awareness of understanding of the severity of his actions, and no regret.
"He cut his ties with the probation service and provided distorted explanations as to his mental difficulties."
