A panel of three judges, sitting in Jerusalem District Court, has passed sentences of up to three years’ imprisonment on three alleged members of a Jewish terrorist underground who confessed to acts of violence against Arabs. The panel was divided over the severity of the sentence.
The longest was imposed on Dan Be’eri, 41, of Hebron, a convert to Judaism, who was sentenced to five years in prison, two of them suspended. He was charged with conspiracy to blow up the Dome of the Rock, an Islamic shrine on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
Uri Maier, 37, was sentenced to 48 months, 18 of them suspended. He pleaded guilty of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm in connection with car bomb attacks on three Arab mayors in 1980, two of whom were permanently crippled. He was also charged with illegal possession and transport of weapons and membership in a terrorist organization.
Yossi Edri, 25, was sentenced to 30 months in prison, five of them suspended. He had pleaded guilty to providing means to commit a felony, possession of arms and explosives. It was Edri who purchased four timing devices which were to have activated bombs planted in Arab buses in 1983.
The confessions were a result of plea bargaining. The three men sentenced were tried separately from 18 other defendants who retracted their original confessions.
The presiding judges were Yaacov Bazak, Zvi Cohen and Shmuel Findelman. In the case of Be’eri, Bazak, who was president of the court, urged a lighter sentence.
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