Last update - 00:00 13/11/2007
Murdered teen's family petitions court against killers` release
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 overturn the court's decision to reduce the sentence of his murderers from 45 to 30 years in prison.
The ruling to reduce the killers sentence provides the convicted men with an imminent release.
The family's petition opposes the parole department's recommendation to reduce the murderer's sentence as well as the approval of the decision by Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann and President Shimon Peres three months ago.
The petition, filed by the family's attorney Yakov Weinrott, argues that while the parole department allowed the murderer's representative to state his case, no family member was invited to argue their side.
The five were first arrested just days after the murder, but were released a few weeks later when no evidence tying them to the crime could be found.
In March 1984, the five were arrested again and after several remand extensions and a very lengthy trial they were found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment plus 27 years.
Then chief justice Aharon Barak decided in 1999 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.
The retrial ended in March 2002 after the High Court of Justice found the five defendants guilty on all counts. The presiding judge in the case issued a statement after the verdict was reached, stating that in spite of faults in the police investigation of the crime, the five men were all guilty of murder and kidnapping, and there was no reason to question the decisions of the Tel Aviv court on the matter.
The defendants issued an appeal of their verdict in 2005, arguing that they were convicted based solely on confessions they gave only after they were subjected to repeated threats and beatings. They maintained that their confessions were therefore not given in the "free and willful" manner required by law.
The five argued that their retrial "lacked structure" after one of the presiding judges was replaced midway through due to a sudden illness.
They also testified that the retrial was merely a "replay" of the original trial, and did not answer any of the questions raised by Barak in his decision to call a retrial in 1999.
The court denied the defendants' appeal and reaffirmed the verdict handed down by the court in 2002.
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