Last update - 00:00 25/09/2007
Family petitions sentence reduction for Danny Katz's murderers
By Yuval Yoaz , Haaretz Correspondent
The family of teenager Danny Katz who was killed by five Israeli Arabs in Haifa in 1983 petitioned the High Court on Tuesday to resicnd a decision to reduce the sentence of his murderers from 45 to 30 years in jail.
In a letter to President Shimon Peres, Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann and the parole department at the Justice of Ministry, attorney Yakov Weinrott called the decision to reduce the sentence "bewildering," and cited the fact that the family was not informed of the decision in advance, the brutality of the committed crime and its nationalistic motivations as reasons not to shorten their jail terms.
In light of the jail term shortening, the convicted men could be released from jail soon.
In March 1984, the five were arrested and after several remands and a very lengthy trial they were found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment plus 27 years.
Former chief justice Aharon Barak in 1999 decided that the five were eligible for a retrial, and two months later three of them were released on bond. Two others, Ahmed Kousli and Wataf Sabihi, were convicted of the murder of Daphna Carmon in 1987 and were not eligible for release on bond as they were serving a life sentence for that crime.