A military court in Samaria on Tuesday sentenced to only six years in prison PA policeman Noaf Fahd, who was charged with the murder of Ben Yosef Livnat (25) on Passover six years ago.
Fahd was convicted of shooting at a group of Jewish worshippers, with Livnat among them, at Joseph’s Tomb near Shechem, Samaria. Fahd was also convicted of obstruction of justice, because following the shooting he picked up his empty shells and threw stones over the crime scene to obscure his involvement. However, the court acquitted Fahd of intentional manslaughter for reasonable doubt.
Attorney Haim Bleicher from legal aid society Honenu issued a statement following the sentence saying it was bizarre and lacked any connection to the facts and evidence presented to the court. “The defendant clearly confessed to shooting at the victim’s vehicle and hitting him. Also, a shell was discovered in the victim’s vehicle which matched the trajectory described by the defendant.”
“The court, on its own volition, invented unreasonable scenarios regarding the possibility that the victim was hit by a different terrorist, despite the fact that all the evidence show the defendant was the only one shooting at the vehicle. We expect that justice will be done in the appeal stage and this terrorist will be punished.”
According to Bleicher, the court also ignored the rights of the victim’s family and attempted to sever them from the case, denying them the right to speak after the ruling.
Former Minister Limor Livnat (Likud), a relative of the victim, told Israel Radio Tuesday evening that the court adopted a scenario favoring the defendant which even the defense had not raised.
