Would-be Azrieli bomber gets 9 years

Court sentences Taibe man who was recruited by Al Aksa to bomb Tel Aviv towers and train near Netanya.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Azrieli 224.88 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Azrieli 224.88
(photo credit: Courtesy)
The Tel Aviv District Court has sentenced Taibe resident Dubian Nazirat, 30, to nine years in jail after he was charged with conspiring to assist the enemy during wartime. Nazirat was a member of an Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade cell that planned to carry out a terror attack on a train as well as at the Azrieli towers in Tel Aviv in 2004. The men intended to plant an explosive device on the railroad tracks near Netanya before detonating it with a cellular phone. The attack was thwarted a day before its planned execution. Two more Taibe residents, Mujhad Dukan, 22, and Amin Ziwati, 23, had been charged earlier with conspiring to assist the enemy during wartime. Dukan is also charged with contacting a foreign agent. One of the cell's members received 15 years in jail while another was sentenced to seven years. The group's leader, Ahmed Kaisy, was sentenced to four and a half years by a military court. The prosecution argued that Nazirat's sentence should be harsher in light of his Israeli citizenship. According to the indictment, Dukan, whose family received Israeli citizenship in 2000 and moved from the Balata refugee camp near Nablus to Taibe, maintained contact with Al-Aksa Brigades fugitives from his hometown. Several months before the arrests, during a visit to Balata, Dukan was approached by a known fugitive and asked to help smuggle a bomb into Israel. Dukan was then contacted by Kaisy and asked to place a bomb in a railway carriage. Dukan allegedly told Kaisy that he was afraid he would not be able to leave the train before the explosion and therefore suggested, and Kaisy agreed, to place the bomb on the tracks instead. Following the meeting with Kaisy, Dukan met the two other defendants and recruited them to participate in the attack. Dukan was informed on October 5 that the bombs were ready to be picked up in Balata, but he was arrested before he could obtain them and the attack was thwarted.