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A Palestinian in the house that was destroyed by the arson attack in 2015
Photo:
ABED OMAR QUSINI / REUTERS
Five years after a fatal arson attack on a Palestinian family in the West Bank, the attacker has been sentenced to three life imprisonment in Israel.
The district court in Lod near Tel Aviv announced the sentence, the guilty verdict was already given at the end of May.
In addition to the life sentence, the 25-year-old settler Amiram Ben-Uliel was sentenced to 20 years in prison for attempted murder.
An 18-month-old toddler and his parents were killed in the arson attack in Duma in the West Bank in July 2015.
Only a four-year-old boy survived the crime, seriously injured.
Ben-Uliel has to pay compensation, for example he has to pay the child the equivalent of 63,000 euros.
The settler was found guilty of three counts of murder.
According to the news website ynet, the judge said the perpetrator was motivated by a “radical and racist ideology”.
The attack caused international horror.
According to the Israeli army, at least two masked people had come to the village of Duma between Nablus and Ramallah early in the morning.
They smeared graffiti in Hebrew on two houses, then broke windows and threw fire bombs into the buildings.
Attorneys and family members accused the investigators of using torture to obtain the confession of the main defendant and his underage accomplice.
According to the indictment, the two extremists wanted to avenge themselves with the arson attack for the murder of an Israeli by Palestinians in the previous month.
The underage accomplice was released in July 2018 after two years in house arrest.
Last year he reached a deal with the prosecutor.
A final decision in his case is expected in the coming months.
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mes / dpa