Last update - 00:00 05/02/2008
Court hands killer of minister Ze'evi life term plus 20 years
By Ofra Idelman, Haaretz Correspondent
The Jerusalem District Court on Tuesday sentenced a Palestinian militant to life imprisonment and an additional 20 years of prison time for his role in the 2001 assassination of minister Rehavam Ze'evi.
Bassel Asmar, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was earlier convicted of the murder by the court in January. He was also convicted of membership in a terrorist organization and several counts of attempted murder for placing car bombs and explosive devices in Jerusalem in 2001.
Asmar and his accomplice Hamdi Qur'an ambushed the 75-year-old tourism minister in the fall of 2001, when he returned to his room at the Jerusalem Hyatt hotel.
According to their plan, Qur'an was to shoot the minister, while Asmar's role was to shoot Ze'evi's bodyguard, should he be accompanied by one. The two waited for Ze'evi in the emergency exit stairwell. When Ze'evi arrived, Qur'an shot him, and then both fled the scene through the emergency exit.
The Jerusalem court sentenced Qur'an in December to life imprisonment for the murder, as well as to 100 years additional jail time for five other convictions.
The court rejected the defense argument that Asmar was just an accessory to murder, saying he was "a full partner both in the planning phase and in implementation." The court ruled that Asmar worked closely with Qur'an to "implement these crimes."
The court pointed out that "the defendant even said that he was jealous of Defendant No. 1 [Qur'an], who won glory due to the fact that he was the one who shot Minister Ze'evi."
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