Barkan terrorist abettor filed appeal

Thursday, December 5, 2019, 12:18 On Sunday, December 8, at 13:30, a deliberation will take place at the Ofer Military Court of Appeals on the appeal that Abdallah Fouad Mustafa Mahmoud, one of the abettors of the Barkan terrorist, filed on the severity of his sentence. The families of the murder victims will be present in court, as will Honenu Attorney Chayim Bleicher, who is representing them as victims of terror. The Shomron Military Court sentenced Mahmoud to a 20-month active prison term, an 18-month suspended sentence and imposed a 3,000 NIS fine on him.
Honenu Attorney Chayim Bleicher: “The first military court handed down the minimum sentence that an abettor supporting terror should receive. The gall of the abettor to appeal and request a more lenient penalty after he was party to an attack is inconceivable. We will arrive with the families at the military appellate court and send a clear message that any leniency in the penalty of terrorists will inevitably result in more bereaved families. We demand that no concessions be given to terror.”
Mahmoud abetted Ashraf Walid Suleiman Na’alwa, the murderer of Kim Levengrond-Yehezkel, Hy”d, and Ziv Hajbi, Hy”d, as he fled the authorities, including by providing him with shelter and disrupting legal proceedings. Mahmoud encountered Na’alwa in a mosque in Shechem and suggested that he sleep in the mosque. At the time Mahmoud was not aware that Na’alwa was the Barkan terrorist. However, even after Mahmoud discovered the identity of his guest he continued to offer shelter. Mahmoud also allowed Na’alwa to use his cell phone, which had Internet access, and took a letter for the terrorist’s sister, who lives in Shechem, in a book. Additionally, in order to prevent seizure by security forces of documentation of the terrorist’s presence in the mosque, Mahmoud asked someone to erase recordings from the mosque’s security cameras.
The Military Court Judge noted in the sentence that “The defendant abetted a fleeing murderer immediately after he carried out two despicable and cruel murders. It is impossible to ignore the fact that the assistance was not momentary and not limited to one instance. … The defendant knew that Na’alwa had murdered two Israelis and despite that did not find it correct to cease the assistance he was providing. He also knew that the murderer was armed, and therefore it was obvious that he still posed a danger.”
However, the judge noted that Mahmoud initially did not know that his guest was the Barkan terrorist and that his actions “were not the most serious degree of the crime of sheltering [a criminal].”