Today (Sunday) the Supreme Court accepted the position of the prosecutor's office and increased the punishment of Rami Shami, who was convicted of the offense of contact with a foreign agent, providing services or providing means for a terrorist organization and conspiring to commit a crime and weapons offenses.
The accused, a 33-year-old resident of Jadeida-Makr in the Galilee, worked to smuggle drugs and weapons through Lebanon and Jordan, together with a Lebanese resident who belonged to the terrorist organization Hezbollah.
The prosecutor's office appealed the three and a half year prison sentence he was sentenced to, claiming that it does not reflect the seriousness of committing an offense based on a risk of harming state security.
The court accepted her position and made his sentence worse so that he would serve six years in prison.
According to the indictment, in 2021 a resident of southern Lebanon, active in Hezbollah, approached a friend of the defendant, Sultan Atallah, and suggested that he smuggle drugs and weapons into Israel.
Atallah offered the defendant to carry out the smuggling with him and the two began trying to find suitable loopholes on the Israel-Lebanon border.
Later, the two tried to locate a contact who would allow them access to smuggling from the Israel-Jordan border as well.
The northern border, photo: None
As part of his activities, Shami traveled several times to the Israel-Lebanon border and took pictures there, which he transmitted via an operational phone to a Hezbollah operative with whom he was in contact.
On another occasion, Shami and Attallah transferred $15,000 to a Hezbollah operative for the purpose of importing guns to Israel, which were finally seized at the Israel-Jordan border.
At another time, the defendant and Atallah flew to Istanbul, where they met the Hezbollah operative with whom they were in contact and another person, who turned out to be a Hezbollah operative, who had previously worked to smuggle drugs and weapons into Israeli territory.
In the meetings, it was suggested to Atallah to help deliver weapons to Hezbollah operatives in Israel and to kidnap an Israeli soldier.
Atallah informed Shami that these were two Hezbollah operatives and that they might offer him a similar offer.
During additional meetings held by the four in Istanbul, where they discussed arms smuggling, Shami agreed to smuggle - for trade purposes only - inside Israel, but did not agree to transfer the weapons to other people on their behalf.
Some time after their return to Israel and the continuation of the activity, contact between Shami and the Hezbollah operative was severed, while Atallah continued contact with him alone.
Rami Shami and Sultan Atallah Photo: Shin Bet, Photo: Shin Bet
In another charge included in the indictment, the defendant was seized with a submachine gun type weapon and a cartridge, which were purchased and held by him illegally.
For the aforementioned, the accused pleaded guilty and was convicted in an amended indictment of the crimes of contact with a foreign agent, providing services or providing means to a terrorist organization and conspiring to commit a crime as well as weapons offenses (purchase and possession), and was sentenced to 42 months in prison.
Hezbollah operatives in front of Metula, photo: Eyal Margolin - Gini
"There is increasing importance in conveying a discouraging message"
The criminal department at the State Attorney's Office, through the director of the department, Attorney Rachel Mater, alongside Attorney Itai Shaham, filed an appeal against the sentence of the accused, and demanded that it be significantly aggravated in a way that would more appropriately express the seriousness of the offenses and the circumstances of their commission.
The attorney's office claimed that these were crimes of a particularly high level of seriousness, which harmed the security of the state and had the potential for great harm.
Among other things, the attorney's office claimed that weight should be given to the duration of the acts that were spread over six months and the dimension of planning that accompanied them.
It was further argued that the court did not give sufficient weight to the fact that the accused continued his actions despite the suspicions that arose about his connection to the terrorist organization Hezbollah.
The Supreme Court accepted the arguments of the prosecution and determined that the punishment imposed for the serious actions of the accused is lenient in a way that justifies his intervention.
The court emphasized that the offense for which the defendant was convicted - contact with a foreign agent, is one of the most serious in the law book, and entails an injury to the protected value of the state's security, and that the punishment does not adequately express the risk posed to the state and its citizens by its very execution.
Later on, the court aggravated his punishment and sentenced him to six years in prison in practice, taking into account the general rule and according to which the appellate court does not exhaust the full severity of the law.
The attorney's office stated in response to the verdict: "We welcome the court's decision, which reflects our clear position regarding the need to significantly increase the punishment for security and weapons offenses. A discouraging message regarding cooperation with organizations that seek to harm the security of the State of Israel, especially with terrorist organizations."
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