Two Palestinian men indicted for murdering father and baby son on Route 60 to stand trial at Ofer Military Court.
By JOANNA PARASZCZUK
The trial of two Palestinian men indicted for murdering a father and his baby son last September was set to continue at the Ofer Military Court on Sunday morning.Asher Hillel Palmer, aged 25, and his infant son Yonatan were killed when their car overturned on Route 60 outside Kiryat Arba.A subsequent police investigation into the deaths revealed that the father and son, from Kiryat Arba, were murdered as the result of rock throwing, not a car accident as the IDF had originally believed.The Military Advocate General indicted the two Palestinian men accused of the murder, Ali Saadeh and Wa'al al-Arjeh, in the Ofer Military Court in November. Both are from Halhul in the West Bank. According to the indictments, the two carried out the attack in revenge for a "price tag" attack on a Nablus mosque shortly before the murder.Sa'adeh was indicted on charges of attempted murder, conspiracy to murder and illegal military training. The indictment lists a total of 23 charges against him, all related to attacks and security offenses in the area, and including an attempt to fire an M-16 rifle at a passenger bus on Route 60.Arjeh is charged with 30 offenses, including another attempted murder in which the Palestinian man allegedly threw rocks at a bus in order to cause the deaths of passengers.Asher Palmer's father, Michael, attended the first hearing in the case in February and said that he was upset to find that, while the defendants sat in court, a small crowd of people were allowed into the hearing to support and encourage them.