Mahmoud A'tauna, a member of the terror cell that murdered Dvir Sorek at the Migdal Oz junction, south of Jerusalem, three years ago, was convicted of murder by a military court on Thursday morning.
A'tauna himself was not at the scene of the crime, but planned the murder together with the cell and enlisted one of the murderers. A'tauna dealt with enlistment and training for Hamas and was in charge of preaching Jihad to the cell's members.
The terrorist was convicted with two additional counts of intentional manslaughter and a list of additional security crimes.
The defendant was part of a Hamas terror cell, of which two other defendants who stabbed Sorek were members. The military court accepted the military prosecutor's stance to convict the defendant of committing the crime, although he was not present at the scene of the attack and was not the one who stabbed Sorek. This is in light of his central part in the decision to carry out the attack and the enlistment of one of its perpetrators.
Last year, a court sentenced Qasem Atafra to life in prison plus 40 years, and Nasir Atafra to life in prison plus 20 years, for perpetrating the murders.
It was also determined that each of the defendants will pay compensation in the amount of NIS 1,500,000 to Sorek's family and that Qasem will also compensate the victims of another attack he committed in 2011, in the amount of NIS 60,000.
According to the verdict, Qassem recruited Nasir to a military cell that operated on behalf of the Hamas terrorist organization intending to carry out attacks against Israeli targets. The two planned to carry out a stabbing attack and murder of an Israeli together. On August 7, 2019, when they noticed Dvir Sorek near the entrance to Migdal Oz, the two blocked his way using their vehicle. Following this, Nasir got out of the vehicle, started beating Sorek with an electric shocker, and stabbed him several times in the upper body. After that, the two fled the scene.