Court-appointed psychiatrist says Yosef Haim Ben-David is only pretending to be insane; psychiatric opinion could lead to conviction, after judges already determined he is guilty.
A Jerusalem District Court-appointed psychiatrist has determined that Yosef Haim Ben-David, the main suspect in themurder of Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir, is responsible for his actions and fit to stand trial, Channel 2 reported on Monday evening.
The psychiatrist also determined that Ben-David, 30, was not credible and was only pretending to be insane.
The psychiatric opinion was completed on Thursday – almost three months after the Jerusalem District Court ruled that Ben-David committed the murder, but did not convict him because of a previous psychiatric opinion presented by his attorneys which questioned his sanity.
The new psychiatric opinion will be presented to the judges, who are supposed to determine whether to convict Ben-David of the murder and to then sentence him accordingly.
In November, after the judges determined Ben-David was guilty of the crime, Hussein Abu Khdeir, the victim’s father, said that it did not make sense that “this criminal waited a year and a half before presenting an opinion that he’s insane. Where was that a year ago? I’m afraid the court acquits him. As Ecclesiastes said, ‘Everything is meaningless.’ I’m afraid more like him would pop up if the court does not create deterrence.”
Earlier this month, the two minors who were involved in the murder were convicted and sentenced – one, 18 years old, to life in prison and another, 17, believed to have had a lesser role in the crime, to 21 years imprisonment.
The two minors, 14 at the time, and Ben-Yosef snatched Palestinian teen Mohammed Abu Khdeir from an East Jerusalem neighborhood in July 2014, driving him to a Jerusalem forest where he was burned to death. The murder was carried out in revenge for the abduction and killing earlier that summer of three Israeli teens by Hamas terrorists.
In response to the abduction, Israel rounded up Hamas members in the West Bank, sparking a barrage of rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. Days after the Abu Khdeir murder, Israel began airstrikes in Gaza in an attempt to quell the rockets, resulting in a 50-day war.
One of the teenagers is also accused with the attempted kidnapping of Moussa Zalum, seven years old at the time, from Beit Hanina, and the State Attorney has asked that an additional imprisonment sentence on top of the life sentence.
As reported by Ynetnews