The Tel Aviv District Court ruled Thursday that alleged murderer Julien Soufir is unfit to stand trial due to insanity. Soufir was indicted for stabbing Israeli Arab taxi driver Taysir Karaki to death in 2007. Soufir's brother Jonathon has been accused of complicity in the killing.
The brothers made aliya (immigrated to Israel) from France shortly before the killing. Julien Soufir had undergone a sudden switch to religious observance and had begun to act strangely, psychologists said. He was accused of domestic violence and underwent a psychological evaluation just one month prior to the killing.
The murder took place in May 2007. After luring Karaki to his apartment and stabbing him, Soufir was caught and admitted to the killing. He did not express regret and exhibited unusual behavior in court, clapping and making faces at the press.
Police investigators concluded that Soufir had sought out an Arab victim, and suggested that the murder was motivated by nationalism. However, psychologists determined that Soufir was insane at the time of the killing, and suffered from delusions.
Karaki was survived by a wife and five children, who live in Jerusalem. Then-mayor Uri Lupoliansky recognized the family as “victims of terrorism,” a status granting them financial assistance from the state.
While experts told the court Soufir was insane and unfit for trial, the victim's family charged the court with racism. “He was released only because he's Jewish and my brother was Arab,” Karaki's sister Siham accused.
Soufir will remain in custody, and is expected to be transferred to the closed unit of a hospital for the mentally ill. The State will not be able to pursue a murder indictment against Soufir in the future, since the court ruled that he was mentally unstable at the time of the murder.