Acre car-rammer indicted for act of terror
Malek Yousef Asadi, 26, from northern Israel is indicted for 5 acts of attempted murder in a terror attack in which he ran over and lightly-to-moderately wounded 2 soldiers, a border policeman and a pedestrian near the city's train station earlier this month, before being neutralized by a border cop; indictment says he told his friends 'life in heaven is better.'
Malek Yousef Asadi (26), from Shefa-'Amr in northern Israel, carried out his attack at the city’s train station, before a Border Police officer managed to shoot and neutralize him.
The indictment attributed to him five counts of attempted murder in his act of terror. Asadi, who was originally reported as being 51 years old, was hospitalized after the attack but was discharged on Tuesday before arriving in court.
Security forces were originally unsure as to the motives of the driver, with varying reports indicating that he had gone on the rampage with his vehicle after being issued an expensive parking fine. However, the security forces dispelled the rumors, stating that the attack and the parking ticket were entirely unrelated.
According to the indictment, on 3 March at 11 am, Asadi arrived with his wife to a doctors clinic in Acre for a medical check up.
He parked his vehicle next to the building on a pavement on Ha’atzmaut Street and blocked the pedestrian walkway while waiting for his wife. At 11:24 am, policemen from the municipal police passed by and issued a parking fine, which they stuck on Asadi’s windscreen.
After receiving the fine, Asadi spotted a soldier looking over at him. At that point, he began driving his vehicle toward Yehushpat Street in the direction of the soldier.
When he noticed that the soldier was about to cross the road, he accelerated his vehicle, ascended the sidewalk and ran the soldier over with intent to kill, the indictment noted.
Afterward, Asadi continued and hit three more soldiers and attempted to plow his vehicle into others. The indictments also notes that before the attack, Asadi told his friends that “life in heaven is better.”
Asadi worked in the past as a welder, and during his work was asked to make trailers for security forces, including for the Israel Police and the IDF.
In March 2016, Asadi suffered a personal crisis and cut contact with all his friends and became a social recluse. During the same period, when he was becoming increasingly religious, Asadi asked his employer not to make the trailers for the security forces, and was subsequently fired. Two months later, he got married.
In a statement after the vehicular attack, police said that evidence from the scene and the CCTV footage confirmed that it was a nationalistically-motivated incident.
Asadi’s relatives rejected the police’s assertion that the incident was terror related, however.
His father told Ynet, “Why would my son do such a thing? All that happened is he took his pregnant wife to the hospital for a checkup and intended to return home.” He added that he was not informed of his son’s condition after he was shot and moderately wounded by security forces at the scene.
