Stiff jail sentences for heads of Tira crime family

Prison terms represent the first serious application of a 2003 law aimed at fighting organized crime.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
crime scene 248 88 generic (photo credit: Courtesy)
crime scene 248 88 generic
(photo credit: Courtesy)
In the first serious application of a law aimed at fighting organized crime, the Tel Aviv District Court sentenced eight people on Tuesday to stiff jail terms for mob affiliation. All eight had been convicted three months ago of earning large sums of money through operations which had been conducted over four years through an organized crime network in Tira. The head of the organization, Marwan Nasser, was sentenced to 15 years in prison and fined NIS 3 million. Nasser's associate, Shadi Nasser, got 10 years and an NIS 1 million fine. A third man, Avi Alon, jailed for nine years. The long jail sentences were the first to be imposed using a law targeting organized crime passed in 2003. According to the law, heads of crime families can be tried for crimes which are committed by other members of the family - even if a direct connection to those crimes cannot be established. The law also states that crimes committed under an organized crime framework would draw twice the penalty of the same crimes committed without any such connection. In their sentencing, the judges wrote that "the law against crime is the fruit of the new awareness of the public and the authorities to the threat to society, which has started to become more apparent in recent years, of groups of organized criminals whose [goal] is to vandalize and destroy."