Three Arabs Charged With Brutal Beating of Jewish Driver in Mixed City

Three Arabs from Acre were indicted Thursday for brutally beating a Jewish man during last month's riots in the mixed Jewish-Arab city in northern Israel.

The charges against two of the defendants were designated as terrorist acts, which allows the length of the sentencing to be doubled.

• Jewish-Arab City Resident Put Under Administrative Detention After Riots Last Month
• Seven Arabs Charged for Murder in Deadly Mob-attack on Jewish Resident of Mixed City
• With Wary Eye on Gaza, Israel Police Bracing for Renewed Arab-Jewish Violence

According to the indictment, the three men joined other masked Arab youths who had erected a barricade in the middle of a street at the height of the unrest in Acre on May 12. They threw stones at a police car and blocked traffic using furniture and other objects. When they identified a vehicle with a Jewish driver, Mor Janashvili, they pelted it with dozens of stones. Janashvili lost control of the vehicle and crashed into wall, hitting an Arab youth.

Janashvili left the vehicle and attempted to flee on foot when he was beaten to the ground by the three defendants, armed with iron bars, clubs, stones and other objects, the indictment said. The defendants kept beating him, with one of them, Kusai Abbas, hitting Janashvili over the head with a table leg. Later, one of the rioters torched the vehicle.

Janashvili was rushed to the hospital in moderate condition. The defendants were arrested a few days later. Abbas was charged with attempted murder as a terrorist act, throwing stones at a vehicle as a terrorist act, sabotaging a vehicle as a hate crime and rioting. Adham Bashir was charged with aggravated assault as a terrorist act and rioting. Bilal Hilwani was charged with rioting. The state has requested to keep the three in custody until the end of legal proceedings.