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Yosef Haim Ben David, the ringleader convicted in the 2014 kidnapping-murder of East Jerusalem teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir, apologizes to the victim’s family.
Yosef Haim Ben David, 31, was convicted over the murder of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir.
He was also given 20 years for other crimes and ordered to pay $39,000 to the victim’s family.
Before the sentence was read out, Ben-David told the court he was “sorry” for what happened.
“I am sorry for the family. This is not me. I wasn’t in control,” he said.
In 2014, Mohammed Abu Khdeir was forced into a car and driven to a forest where he was beaten with a tyre iron and set on fire.
Three defendants, including two minors, confessed to the abduction, bludgeoning and burning of the 16-year-old.
But the court delayed the verdict against Ben-David, pending a psychological report after his lawyer claimed he was unfit for trial.
The state prosecutor said the damage he caused Israel and the family of the Palestinian victim was “irreparable”.
The teenager’s death was described as revenge for the murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank by Hamas militants.
The killing – and the murders of the three Israeli youths days earlier – triggered a chain of events that led to the 50-day Gaza war.
Sixteen-year-olds Naftali Frenkel and Gilad Shaar and 19-year-old Eyal Yifrach disappeared on 12 June, 2014.
Israel launched a concerted military operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip after their bodies were discovered near the village of Halhul, on 1 July, 2014.
Rocket attacks and airstrikes between Israel and Gaza continued for weeks.
Agencies/Canadajournal
