After more than a decade: A young man convicted of murder based on disqualified evidence was released early

In 2011, Yosef (pseudonym), 17, from Jaljulia, was convicted along with three other boys of shooting at a student bus in Kafr Qassem, which led to the death of the boy Amjad Shahavana.

The other three were acquitted after being exposed in Walla!

Because the investigation was flawed, but Joseph remained in prison.

He is now being released

Yael Friedson

24/02/2022

Thursday, 24 February 2022, 11:30 Updated: 11:31

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In the video: Documentation of the murder of Moshe from the Elmihu case at the entrance to a restaurant in the area (Photo: Israel Police spokeswoman)

More than a decade ago, Yosef (pseudonym), then 17 years old from Jaljulia, was convicted of murdering the boy Amjad Shahavana near Kafr Qassem, and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

In 2019 it was unveiled at Walla!

That Yosef's conviction was determined after systematic violations of the law by the police, which included, among other things, undocumented investigations and changing versions at the request of investigators.

Now, the Supreme Court has reduced Joseph's sentence, and reduced his sentence by nine years.

Joseph filed a motion for retrial through the Public Defender's Office, and exceptionally the Supreme Court granted his request for a retrial by way of appeal.

The parties reached a plea agreement in which the conviction for the murder of Yosef would remain unchanged, but his sentence would be shortened.

Yosef has been in prison for 12 years, and is expected to be released this October.

In 2011, Yosef was prosecuted, along with three other defendants for conspiracy to murder, and charged with firing an automatic weapon at a student bus en route to Kafr Qassem in 2009.

A student was killed and another was injured in the shooting.

The defendants were minors, and themselves students at the school at the time of the events.

More on Walla!

Disclosure: A boy convicted of murder sits in jail for a decade - based on disqualified evidence

To the full article

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The Supreme Court (Photo: Noam Moskowitz)

Yosef was convicted by the Central District Court, while in a separate proceeding the other defendants were acquitted, after the Central District Court ruled that the same evidence that led to Yosef's conviction was inadmissible, negligible in weight and obtained as part of an improper and fundamentally flawed police investigation.

Among other things, it was found that the investigation team did not document extensive parts of the suspects' investigations, in what became known as the "disappearing interrogation" method.

Advocate Moran Carmon of the Public Defender's Office, who represented Yosef, welcomed the court's decision, at the end of a "rare legal proceeding," as she puts it. "Every day, the state agrees to such a significant reduction in imprisonment," she said. She was happy that Joseph, "who has been imprisoned since he was 16, will soon be able to finally begin his life as a free man."

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