Court denies appeal of Bennet, Molrova murder accomplice

Appellant was 15 when she helped her boyfriend brutally kill two teenage girls in 2003.

By JOANNA PARASZCZUK
Israeli Supreme Court 311 (photo credit: REUTERS/FILE)
Israeli Supreme Court 311
(photo credit: REUTERS/FILE)
The Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday to deny the appeal of a woman convicted of helping serial killer Adwan Farhan murder Dana Bennet and Sylvia Molrova in 2003.
The woman, identified only as Y., was 15 years old when her boyfriend, Farhan, murdered the two women.
In 2010, she agreed to admit the charges against her in a plea bargain, which did not include any deal regarding punishment.
When the Nazareth District Court sentenced her to 14 years in prison, Y. appealed, arguing that the sentence was too harsh and not in line with the plea bargain she had struck with the state.
She was convicted of being present and actively helping Farhan – with whom she had been living for two years – kill Molrova on July 5, 2003. Farhan offered the victim, a Czech tourist, a lift home. On the way, he picked up Y. and drove to Nahal Tzalmon, where he choked Molrova with a cable. Y. suggested making certain she was dead by drowning her in the stream, and helped weigh the victim down with rocks and submerge her in the water.
A month later, on August 1, 2003, Farhan decided to kill again. This time his victim was an 18-year-old American-Israeli woman named Dana Bennet, whom he and Y. met in Tiberias as she got out of a taxi.
According to the indictment, Y. persuaded Bennet to get into their car, where Farhan told her he was a hostel owner looking for staff and offered her a job.
Farhan drove Bennet to a secluded road and beat her with his bare hands. She pleaded for her life, but Farhan continued to beat her. He then ripped her shirt, tore off her bra and choked her with it, as Y. stood by and watched. To ensure the victim was really dead, the indictment continued, Farhan stomped on her stomach.
In her appeal, Y. said that the District Court had not taken into account mitigating circumstances, including her difficult life and family situation.
However, Supreme Court justices Salim Joubran, Esther Hayut and Yitzchak Amit found that the District Court judges had taken all of her main circumstances into consideration and had imposed an appropriate sentence that did not depart from the plea bargain.
“The defendant’s personal circumstances, however difficult, have been taken into account in light of her aiding in and contributing to the two horrific murders described in the amended indictment,” the original judgement said.