Demand for deterrence factor in Barkan case

Wednesday, June 5, 2019, 15:05 Honenu sent an urgent letter to the acting chief of the Israel Prison Service Commissioner, Asher Vaknin, and to the Public Security Minister, Gilad Erdan, demanding the separation of the minor convicted of failure to prevent the terror attack in Barkan from his father, the arch-terrorist Mohamed Naifa, who is currently sharing a cell with him in the Gilboa Prison.
In the beginning of the letter, Honenu Attorney Chayim Bleicher wrote that after the terror attack in Barkan, in which Kim Levengrond-Yehezkel and Ziv Hajbi, Hy”d were murdered, the minor was detained on suspicion of having been of the terrorist’s intent to carry out the attack and not preventing him from doing so.
He also wrote that, “From the indictment served to the minor, in which the defendant admitted [to the charges against him], it appears that a day before the attack the terrorist, [Ashraf] Na’alwa, told the minor that he expects to hear good things the following day, and that his father will be released from the Israeli prison, as he hinted to him about his intent to carry out a terror attack in Barkan, and that he must pray for it, as the minor did.”
Later in the letter Bleicher described the father of the minor, “The father of the minor is arch-terrorist Mohamed Naifa, who was directly responsible for sending the terrorists who murdered 13 Israelis in brutal attacks, including the attack on Kibbutz Meitzar in which five citizens were murdered, among them two children, four-year old No’am, five-year old Matan and their mother, Revital Ohayon.”
Simultaneous to the legal proceedings against the minor, which included conviction, sentencing, appeal on the leniency of the penalty and re-sentencing, Bleicher became aware that the minor had been reunited with his father in prison. In honor of the reunion celebrations were held and the minor also celebrated his eighteenth birthday with his father.
Bleicher stated that, “It is past time for the terrorists to pay the price for their actions. They come out of prison better off.” Bleicher quoted from the verdict of the minor, in which Judge Colonel Netanel Benisho, the President of the Military Court of Appeals wrote: “The significant penalty… is a not inconsequential part of the efforts to uproot the aforementioned negative phenomena (the social, caring and supportive environment for terrorists). It is likely to encourage others to take steps to prevent terror attacks and to save lives.”
Bleicher added that, “We see from the verdict that the main goal of the penalization is creating a deterrence factor for terrorists. The problem with this case appears to be that without immediate action taken by the Prison Service we will receive the opposite result, serious damage to the deterrence factor and promotion of terror.”
At the close of the letter Bleicher addressed the Prison Service and the Public Security Minister: “We demand the separation of the arch-terrorist from his son. One of them must be sent to a different area of the prison. The undersigned speaks in the name of the aching-hearted families who have lost the most dear to them.”
Honenu Attorney Chayim Bleicher, who is representing the Levengrond and Hajbi families, stated that, “This is a war against cruel terror. In a war such as this all of the authorities and all of the proceedings must be united in the task of penalizing terrorists and deterring them. The environment in the prisons has immediate ramifications for the security of all citizens, and therefore we expect the Prison Service to prevent a situation in which terrorists receive rewards or special conditions, which in the end translate into promoting acts of terror.”