The groom from the 2015 “hate wedding,” in which participants celebrated the Duma arson, was sentenced to four months of community service for incitement by the Jerusalem District Court on Sunday, the right-wing legal aid group Honenu said.
Another participant received 180 hours community service for his role in celebrations of the Molotov cocktail attack on the West Bank Dawabshe family home that killed 18-month-old Ali Dawabshe and his parents Sa’ad and Riham.
Honenu said that it was considering appealing the verdict of what it described as a political trial.
“We believe that this case was political persecution by the prosecutor’s office,” said Honenu attorney Moshe Polski. “The court adopted the prosecution’s absurd thesis that it saw the event as a demonstration of incitement. This indictment should never have happened.”
Polski said that while the spontaneous event was disrespectful, it was not intended as incitement to violence. Polski noted on Sunday that physical interrogation measures were used by the Shin Bet against Ben-Uliel and his accomplices in the attack. The lawyer said that the event was in part a response to the intelligence agency’s tactics and that the “hate wedding” trials were diversions from the conduct of state authorities.
Amiram Ben Uliel, the suspect in the Duma arson murder in July 2015 where three members of the Dawabshe family were killed, arrives to hear his verdict at the court on May 18, 2020 (credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI/FLASH90)“The court adopted the prosecution’s absurd thesis that it saw the event as a demonstration of incitement. This indictment should never have happened.”
Moshe Polski
The sentencing in 2020
Ben-Uliel was sentenced to three life sentences in 2020 for the attack that also left five-year-old Ahmed with severe burns. A teen accomplice to three and a half years in prison.
Five other adults were convicted for incitement to violence after footage was circulated from the wedding, held five months after the Duma arson. On March 2, four men who were minors at the time of the wedding were convicted. A fifth from the minor trials was acquitted, as was the wedding singer in the adult trials.
In the videos, photos of the baby and parents attached to poles were brought to the dance floor. Some celebrants danced with the photos with M4 and M16 rifles, pistols, mock guns, knives and glass bottles made up to resemble Molotov cocktails. Others stabbed and set fire to the pictures.
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