Chief rabbi's son gets 32 months for abduction of sister's suitor

The Tel Aviv District Court sentenced Meir Amar, son of Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, to 32 months in prison for the abduction of his teenage sister's 17-year-old suitor.

Meir Amar and his friends Abdullah and Ahmed Sawalme, from the Israeli Arab town of Kalansua, abducted the youth at knife point in April to a home in Kalansua, where he was beaten for several hours.

He was then taken to Rabbi Amar's home in Jerusalem, where he was further maltreated. The prosecution will now request a three-year imprisonment for Amar, while the defense will be allowed to ask for a punishment it finds fit.

The court also gave Amar a 12-month suspended sentence and ordered him to pay his victim NIS 35,000 in compensation.

In the deal between Amar's attorneys and the State Prosecution, 31-year-old Amar also admitted to charges of abduction, extortion, physically abusing a minor and illegal incarceration of the teenager who suited his sister Ayala.

Under the deal, the chief rabbi's family has promised to help the boy's absorption in a yeshiva, a difficult task since he had decided to turn to the police. Several charges were to be omitted under the plea bargain.

Judge Zecharia Caspi also criticized the chief rabbi's wife, Mazal Amar, for not reporting the incident, which she knew about, to police.

"She had reason to believe that the youngster was abducted, held against his will and was harmed by the three other accused, but she didn't do a thing," Caspi said.

"This should be enough to worry the prosecution. Other than being illegal, this has negative social impact," he said.

	Meir Amar
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