By JPOST.COM STAFF
The Tel Aviv District Court on Tuesday morning sentenced purported underworld kingpin Amir Mulner, who is a prime suspect in the car bomb assassination of mafia chief Ya'acov Alperon in November 2008, to 32 months in prison for possession of a gun and a silencer, and conspiracy to commit a crime.
In his ruling, Judge David Rosen emphasized the severity of the crimes. "The defendants… did not possess a gun to show it off… The gun is a weapon of death, a lethal instrument used for destruction, bodily harm and murder."
Last October, shortly after Alperon's death in Tel Aviv, Mulner, an explosives expert, was arrested along with 16 other suspects during a police raid on a Ramat Gan apartment.
Throughout the trial, Mulner denied the charges and said he wasn't aware of the gun, but security surveillance cameras showed beyond reasonable doubt that he played an active role in hiding the weapon.
Earlier this month, due to insufficient evidence, police dropped another case against Mulner after arresting him in connection with a massive cocaine trafficking network involving drug runners from Panama and senior Israeli crime figures.
Yaakov Lappin contributed to this report.
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