Rafi Levengrond; Photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90
Tuesday, October 27, 2020, 19:55 On Tuesday, October 27, a deliberation was held in the trial of Muhamed Ibrahim Kharsa, who is charged with failure to prevent the October 2018 terror attack in which Ashraf Na’alwa murdered Kim Levengrond-Yehezkel, Hy”d, and Ziv Hajbi, Hy”d in the Barkan Industrial Park. The prosecution asked the judge to authorize the plea bargain in which the sides had reached an agreement of a penalty of 36 months’ imprisonment and payment of monetary compensation. In August, the judge rejected the previous plea bargain of 33 months’ imprisonment.
Kharsa is charged with conspiring to shelter a criminal. The bill of indictment states that even though he was aware of the weapon which the terrorist held and was aware of his intents, he did not inform any authority and did not prevent the attack.
Rafi Levengrond, Kim Levengrond-Yehezkel’s father was present at the deliberation and expressed his opposition to the plea bargain: “I am certain that my daughter’s life is worth more than three years or 1,500 NIS. Also Ziv Hajbi’s life is worth more than that. [The murder] destroyed my home. I don’t have a wife. I don’t have children at home. I barely have grandchildren. Kim’s son won’t remember her at all. He was a year and four months [at the time of the murder]. He only knows stories about his mom. Even when he grows up he won’t remember anything.”
Levengrond continued: “Handing down a penalty of three years is a joke. That won’t deter anyone. It won’t do the job. It’s like when they didn’t demolish the terrorist’s house. They claimed that the family wasn’t involved. … The penalty must be more of a deterrence. He should get the maximum that his crime carries. Even that won’t be enough, but it’s the least they can do.”
Honenu Attorney Chayim Bleicher, who is assisting the Levengrond family with realizing their rights as victims of terror: “The terrorist who carried out the attack did so with the support of his surroundings. Behind every attack there are many terrorists who support [the perpetrator], cooperate with him, and also try to carry out attacks on their own. In order to drain the swamp of terror, penalties which deter must be handed down to every terrorist who participated in any way in the attack. The defendant [Kharsa] was aware of the terrorist’s plans and did nothing to stop him.”
A penalty will be handed down to Muhamed Ibrahim Kharsa at a later date.