Palestinians sentenced for stabbing senior US oleh
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS
Two Palestinian men who stabbed an elderly
American-born Israeli outside his Jerusalem home last year were sentenced to 15 and 17 years in prison Thursday by the Jerusalem District Court.
Mohammed Sa'ada, 23, Daoud Harma'as, 22, both of West Bank village of Halhoul near Hebron, were previously convicted in the same court as part of a plea bargain on charges of attempted murder for stabbing 71-year-old Jerusalem resident Pinchas Rosenfeld in the city's central Abu Tor neighborhood on December 19, 2004.
The two men, who were apprehended at a West Bank
checkpoint earlier this year, told police
investigators after their arrest that they "wanted to kill a Jew" since they were "unemployed and fed-up."
Their elderly victim was moderately wounded in the
late-night attack, his heavy winter coat shielding
him from more serious injuries.
The court said in its sentencing Thursday that the
"planned cold blooded murder" of the pensioner simply because he was a Jew required them to hand down a stiff jail term.
The maximum sentence for attempted murder in Israel is 20 years.