An ultraorthodox Israeli has used arson to kill an Arab toddler. That’s what an Israeli court found on May 18.
A 25-year-old Israeli right-wing activist named Amiram Ben-Uliel hurled a firebomb into a West Bank home in July 2015. The incident killed a Palestinian 18-month old toddler and his parents.
The case made headlines in the country. He “faces a life sentence for an ethnically motivated assault”, says The New York Times.
The Associated Press quotes Shin Bet, Israel’s internal intelligence agency, saying that Ben-Uliel confessed he planned and carried out the attack, and that two others were accessories. It said he claimed the arson was in retaliation for the killing of an Israeli by Palestinians a month earlier.
According to the Associated Press, Ben-Uliel belongs to a movement named “Hilltop Youth”, a group of young people who is attempting to colonize the West Bank using clusters of trailers on the West Bank hilltops.
Ben-Uliel’s lawyers claim that “their client was severely tortured and that was how his confession was exacted”, still according to AP. They plan to appeal. “We hope that the Supreme Court will overturn the judgment,” said Yitzhak Baum, one of his lawyers.