The family of terror victim Yinon Levanon HY”D on Tuesday morning 23 Tishrei addressed the Beersheva District Court concerning the request by the State of Israel to authorize a lenient plea bargain for the murderer of their son. The family demanded that the court reject the plea bargain and that their son’s murderer be penalized to the full extent of the law.

Yinon Levanon, who was a 28 year-old Sussia resident at the time of his death (February 10, 2013), was killed when Sa’id Al-Nabari, a Bedouin smuggling workers without proper documentation over the Green Line, drove across a solid line, evaded a police car and passed 10 vehicles before colliding head-on with Levanon.

During the deliberation the Attorney General’s office presented the plea bargain according to which Al-Nabari will be sentenced to only 3.5 years in prison – the crime with which Al-Nabari is charged carries a sentence of up to 20 years – and required to pay monetary compensation. The plea bargain was presented despite the opposition expressed by Honenu attorney Adi Kedar, who is representing the family and despite the fact that Kedar met with personnel from the Southern District Attorney’s office to demand that the plea bargain be canceled.

Yinon’s father, Chaim, and sisters, Tehila and Tiferet, spoke about Yinon at the deliberation and demanded that Judge Tali Chaimovitch reject the plea bargain.

“Yinon was an IDF soldier, an idealist, he worked in construction, he was a talented musician, and he was killed on his way to an exam for a course in his construction engineering studies,” said his father, Chaim, and demanded that the judge not accede to the plea bargain and that justice be carried out by punishing Al-Nabari to the full extent of the law.

“It cannot be that a driver takes the law into his own hands, drives wildly and murders our son. There were not even any brake marks at the site of the accident. If the [defendant] is not penalized to the full extent of the law, I as the father of Yinon will feel as though I did not do all that was necessary,” said Chaim Levanon, and added that the practice of reckless driving by smugglers transporting Arabs without proper documentation has continued and must be stopped.

Levanon continued: “There is no cause to be considerate of someone who is not considerate with human lives. As someone who travels on these roads daily I feel the danger. They [the smugglers] drive as if insane, and endanger human lives. Therefore deterrence is necessary.”

The verdict is scheduled to be given on November 16, 2015.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)