Three members of the Albahiri family were convicted by the Be’er Sheva District Court Thursday of the 2017 murder and accessory to murder of their relative, Hanan Albahiri, 19, of Laqye, a Bedouin town in the Southern District of Israel.
In a plea bargain the three had entered, Hanan’s cousin confessed to breaking her neck, and to then burning her body with her two uncles.
The cousin who was convicted of murder was sentenced to life in prison, while the two convicted uncles were sentenced to ten years in prison each and compensation of NIS 300,000 ($87,000) to the victim’s mother.
The original indictment alleged that the two uncles participated in the murder itself as well, but the cousin refused to testify against them.
The head of the three-judge panel, Natan Zlotchover, said at the ruling that the killer and his aides had “lost their humanity.” He added that “It’s a shame that human beings in the 21st century behave this way. A young woman lost her life on the altar of an ancient, cruel and inhumane tradition merely because she had the courage to act differently from what the patriarchal system dictated.”
Police investigation of the 2017 murder revealed that the three kidnapped the young woman in their car, murdered her and burned her body because she wanted to get a divorce after having been forced to marry her husband.