The Tel Aviv District Court on Sunday sentenced a minor who helped steal the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff's credit card and two weapons to four months in prison and 15 months probation.
The minor, a relative of the main suspect in the case, Louis Mascotta, stole one of the weapons from a soldier guarding the Kirya base in Tel Aviv.
Rakez Shalabia of Qalansawe, who mediated between the thieves and another person who bought the weapons and credit card, was sentenced Sunday to two and a half years in prison. The serious affair was first revealed by Ynet.
The two were convicted as part of a plea bargain several weeks ago. The minor was found guilty of conspiring to commit a crime, aiding arms trafficking, and aggravated robbery. Shalabia was convicted of conspiring to commit a crime, attempted arms trafficking, illegally bearing arms, and attempted illegally bearing arms.
The two were ordered to pay NIS 30,000 (about $7,830) in damages to a person they attacked at the Kirya base while trying to steal weapons.
Judge Chaled Kabub wrote in the sentence that although the minor "has yet to adapt criminal patterns of behavior," the court could not view his young age as a lenient consideration due to the nature of his actions: Robbing a soldier on duty as a guard at the Kirya base, while hitting him in the head with a stone and causing him to lose consciousness.
The judge added that he could not ignore the moving remarks made by the attacked soldier's father, who told the court not only about his son's physical injury, "which is serious in itself," but also about the trauma he and his wife experienced when they received the news about their son's injury and were reminded of their other son's death in the last day of the Second Lebanon War .
New indictment against main suspect
Last week, the Jaffa Military Court received an amended indictment in the case of Corporal Mascotta, who admitted to two counts of weapons theft as well as stealing the IDF chief of staff's credit card.
The new indictment omits charges of the intended robbery of an additional weapon as well as making use of Gabi Ashkenazi's card, though he is still charged with passing on its details to an Israeli Arab, who used it to purchase goods worth hundreds of dollars. His sentence has yet to be delivered.
Earlier this month, the Tel Aviv District Court sentenced Muhammad Majadla, who purchased one of the weapons from Mascotta and his brother through Shalabia, to 32 months in prison.
The sentence was rendered as part of a plea bargain Majadla struck with the prosecution, under which he pled guilty to arms trafficking, conspiracy to commit a robbery, to which aggravated circumstances were attributed, and fraudulently receiving benefits.