Khaled Koutineh, who ran over and killed Shalom Sherki last April, claimed his confession was coerced
The Jerusalem District Court on Wednesday convicted a Palestinian man of murder for a car-ramming attack in Jerusalem last year, rejecting the defendant’s claim that his confession was coerced.
Khaled Koutineh was convicted in the killing of Shalom Sherki and the attempted murder of Shira Klein, who was severely injured in the April 2015 attack.
Koutineh, 37, of the West Bank town of Anata northeast of Jerusalem, originally claimed that he had lost control of his car and did not intend to kill Sherki. He was driving northbound on Haim Bar Lev Boulevard, the main artery separating east and west Jerusalem. He had just passed the French Hill intersection when he swerved onto the sidewalk, striking a bus stop and hitting Sherki, 25, and Klein, 23 at the time, severely injuring her. He then reversed into a stoplight, injuring himself and becoming trapped in the vehicle.
In February, dozens of Israelis gathered outside the Jerusalem District Court to protest against a hearing for Koutineh amid expectations that the defendant and his attorneys would plead insanity. Sherki’s family had called for the demonstration to pressure the court not to grant the suspected attacker’s request.
Sherki was the son of Rabbi Uri Sherki, a community rabbi in Jerusalem’s Kiryat Moshe neighborhood, and the brother of Yair Sherki, a reporter for Channel 2 news.
Before the February hearing, Yair Sherki issued a call on social media for a public protest against Koutineh.
During that court session, Koutineh said he could not recall the exact details of the incident, and added that he had been sleep-deprived on the night of the crash.
“I drove my parents home [on that night] but I do not remember anything since,” he said. “I was tired and stressed out.” Koutineh also said he had suffered from depression during the months and years prior to the suspected attack.
He further claimed that his confession had been coerced by police interrogators. “From the moment I arrived at the Russian Compound for interrogation they beat me,” he said, according to the Walla news site. “I told the interrogator I planned an attack, but I was lying in the hope that he’d leave me alone. All I could remember was a car accident.”
Authorities maintained that Koutineh had “almost certainly” acted out of nationalistic motives, and that he did, in fact, intend to carry out a terror attack.
As reported by The Times of Israel