News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) Two brothers who murdered their 19-year-old sister in a brutal “honor killing” two years ago may be released from prison due to delays in their trial. Supreme Court justice Ester Hayut has asked the Tel Aviv District Court to consider releasing the two to house arrest, saying they have a right to freedom based on the principal of presumption of innocence despite the fact that both have confessed to the crime.

The brothers, Salame and Mohammed Abu Ghanem, have been held in jail for 18 months while their trial continues. Prosecutors have accused the defense of deliberately extending the trial. If the brothers are released to their houses due to delays in the trial, they may take advantage of the opportunity and attempt to flee the country, the prosecution warned.

Salame, Mohammed, and two other brothers are accused of drugging their teenaged sister and then strangling her as she begged them to let her live. They then dumped her body in a well. The sister, Reem, was killed because she refused to marry a man from Ramle who her parents had chosen for her. She was the seventh woman from her extended family to die in an “honor killing” within less than a decade; an eighth Abu-Ghanem woman was murdered by her brother less than a year later.