Gil Shamila, 20, who fatally stabbed a man on Tel Aviv's beachfront after the victim refused to give him a cigarette, was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison.

Shamila was originally arraigned on a murder charge but agreed to confess to aggravated manslaughter as part of a plea bargain with prosecutors.
The judges ruled that the killing of Sa'id Badarna could nearly be classified as murder, and gave him the maximum possible jail term.

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The court explicitly criticized the plea bargain, noting that "it would have been appropriate for the decision as to whether the prosecution had proven its case for a murder conviction or not to be taken by the court."

An 18-month suspended sentence Shamila had received for a prior offense will be added to the time to be served, resulting in a total of 21 and half years.

A friend of Shamila, Gavriel Pitzchazra, was convicted of the aggravated assault against one of the victim's friends and was sentenced to 30 months in jail. Pitzchazra was also given a further 24-month suspended sentence and ordered to pay his victim NIS 15,000 in damages.