Israeli court rules ringleader of 2014 burning alive of Palestinian teen is sane

Tuesday's ruling clears the way for settler Yosef Haim Ben-David to be sentenced for the chilling murder of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir.

Yosef Haim Ben-David (C), the ringleader of the killing of Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir last year, is escorted by Israeli policemen at the district court in Jerusalem on April 19, 2016. AhShow more

JERUSALEM // An Israeli court ruled on Tuesday that a Jewish man found to be the ringleader of the beating and burning alive of a Palestinian teenager in 2014 was sane and responsible for his actions.

Israeli settler Yosef Haim Ben-David, 31, was found in November to have led the assault, but his lawyers had submitted last-minute documents saying he suffered from mental illness.

Tuesday’s ruling clears the way for him to be sentenced, with his conviction having been put on hold while the court decided on his sanity plea in the closely watched case.

The family of the teenager, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, welcomed the decision but said they hoped judges followed through with a life sentence for Ben-David, who appeared in court on Tuesday with a thick beard and wearing a yarmulke.

Abu Khdeir’s mother wore a heart-shaped pendant with an image of her son wearing a baseball cap inside at the hearing, and his father said the decision “should have been made a long time ago”.

“We knew that he wasn’t mad,” said Hussein Abu Khdeir.

“It was all a big lie to get off from the crime which he carried out. Even if they sentence him for life, this will never bring Mohammed back again. Our hearts are wounded from what happened.”

The court ruling found that Ben-David “was not psychotic, fully understood the facts, was responsible for his actions, had no difficulty in understanding reality and had the capacity to prevent the crime”.

In February, a court sentenced his two young Israeli accomplices to life and 21 years in prison for the killing, which was part of a spiral of violence in the run-up to the 2014 Gaza war.

The two accomplices were minors at the time of the chilling attack in which they snatched Abu Khdeir, 16, from an east Jerusalem street and then killed him.

His murder was seen as revenge for the killing of Israeli teenagers Naftali Frenkel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrach, who were abducted from a hitchhiking stop near the West Bank city of Hebron.

Israeli authorities said the suspects had decided to kill a Palestinian and equipped themselves with cables, petrol and other materials before randomly choosing Abu Khdeir.

“Today’s decision has come late, but it is correct,” said Mohannad Jbara, a lawyer for Abu Khdeir’s family.

“The crime occurred a year and nine months ago, so this decision has taken a long time, but we have succeeded in convincing the court that he was faking.”

Abu Khdeir was kidnapped from Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem on July 2, 2014 and beaten, with his burnt body found hours later in a forest in the western part of the city.

A forensic report showed smoke in his lungs, indicating he was alive when set alight.

The case has threatened to further raise tensions amid a wave of violence that has killed more than 200 Palestinians, including many teenagers, and 28 Israelis since last October.

Israeli authorities say that most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out – or attempting to carry out – knife, gun or car-ramming attacks.

But Israeli forces have been accused of using excessive force in many cases.

* Agene France-Press