On the morning of Monday 4 Kislev, Beersheva District Court Judge Tali Chaimovitz approved the plea bargain negotiated between the Attorney General’s office and the attorneys representing Sa’id Al-Nabari. On February 10, 2013, Al-Nabari, a Bedouin who was 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 Yinon Levanon HY”D near Meitar in the Har Hebron region. Levanon, a 28-year-old Sussia resident at the time of the collision, was killed.

According to the verdict Sa’id Al-Nabari was sentenced to only three and a half years in prison. He will also compensate the family with NIS 20,000. The lenient plea bargain was presented to the court on October 6, 2015 despite opposition expressed by Honenu attorney Adi Kedar, who is representing Levanon’s family. Previously Kedar met with personnel from the Southern District Attorney’s office to demand that the plea bargain be canceled. The family also spoke before the Be’er Sheva District Court on October 6 and demanded that they reject the plea bargain. The plea bargain was supposed to be presented in court on March 1, 2015, however because the defendant did not appear in court the presentation was postponed.

Levanon’s family found it difficult to accept the verdict. Chaim Levanon, Yinon’s father stated his reaction, “Accepting the plea bargain means that the judge accepts the most lenient interpretation of the law. Neither our hearts nor common sense allow us to accept a plea bargain such as this. We know today, that a vehicle is a weapon, and that individuals illegally entering Israel are often terrorists. The court and the Attorney General’s office are ignoring this and allowing the law to be determined by the most lenient interpretation, which is the most illogical thing that could be. If we want to prevent crime we must uphold the most stringent interpretation of the law. If we do not penalize murderers to the full extent of the law, the likelihood of instances of murder ceasing is small, and the court does not understand this.”

At the previous deliberation on October 6 in which the plea bargain was presented, Yinon Levanon’s family spoke before the court. Yinon’s father, Chaim, and sisters, Tehila and Tiferet, spoke about Yinon at the deliberation and demanded that Judge Tali Chaimovitz 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 humans lives. Therefore deterrence is necessary.”

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)