Mastermind behind 2009 terrorist attack given 2 life sentences
Mohammad Zkharna, who orchestrated murder of taxi driver Gregory Rabinowitz, given 2 life sentences, additional 40-year sentence for planning attack, recruiting perpetrators and directing them how to behave after murder; Zkharna also convicted of being involved in murder of suspected collaborator with Israel, 37 other security offenses.
Terrorist mastermind Mohammad Zkharna was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences and an additional 40-year sentence for recruiting and operating the terrorists who carried out the attack that claimed the life of Gregory Rabinowitz in May 2009.
The three members of the cell Zkharna operated were given life sentences for their part seven years ago.
Zkharna was convicted recently of planning the attack, recruiting the three members, operating them and instructing them on how to behave after the attack. He was also convicted of murdering—along with others—a Palestinian suspected of collaborating with Israel and of 37 other security offenses.
The members of the cell—Mahmoud Ouda, Muhammad Khaledi and Ahmed Abu Hanini—came to Ashdod and tried hailing a taxi with the intention of robbing its driver. Many drivers refused to serve them, however, as they could not produce IDs.
The three were eventually able to board Rabinowitz's cab and asked him to take them to Gan Yavne. When they arrived there, they directed him to a side dirt road, and when he stopped the vehicle, they jumped him and beat him into unconsciousness. They then tied his hands and feet, placed him in the car's trunk and drove off.
Rabinowitz came to a short while later and tried untying himself, at which point the three stopped the taxi, took him out of the trunk, and Ouda began throttling him with a shoelace he tightened against his neck while his friends shoved pieces of cloth into his mouth.
The three did not relent and after a few minutes turned Rabinowitz onto his back, with one of them strangling him with his bare hands until he died. The three then covered the body with branches and cardboard boxes they found nearby and escaped.
They admitted to the crime after they were arrested and said they entered Israel illegally, randomly found Rabinowitz and murdered him after leading him to an isolated locale.
The cell's members added they killed him because he was Jewish and as revenge for the death of one of their relatives, senior Islamic Jihad terrorist Mohammad Abu Jahin, who was killed by security forces in February 2007 as he was being taken into custody.
