Israeli Settler Given Community Service For Killing Palestinian Boy
JERUSALEM (News Agencies) - An Israeli district court on Sunday sentenced an Israeli settler to six months community service for kicking to death an 11-year-old Palestinian boy four years ago, public radio reported.
Under a plea bargain, Nahum Korman, a former security coordinator of the West Bank settlement of Beitar, was also given a suspended sentence by the Jerusalem district court and ordered to pay 70,000 shekels ($17,500 dollars) to the family of the boy, Hilmi Shusha.
The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem denounced the ruling as "ridiculous," accusing the judiciary of treating Arabs and Jews with a double standard.
The sentence means that "a Palestinians's life is cheap" and will encourage Jewish settlers "to perpetrate acts of violence toward Palestinians knowing they will enjoy immunity," B'Tselem said in a statement.
The Supreme Court in November convicted Korman of second-degree manslaughter over the October 1996 killing near the West Bank town of Bethlehem after the district court had initially acquitted him on the grounds of reasonable doubt.
Korman had chased a group of Palestinian boys who had reportedly thrown rocks at Israeli vehicles. A coroner's report said Shusha had been severely kicked in the neck and died of a brain hemorrhage and broken spine.
The Supreme Court had ordered the lower court to take into consideration when sentencing that Korman had tried to revive the boy and taken him to hospital.
