Hamas terror chief Abbas al-Sayad was found guilty of 35 counts of murder Thursday at the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court for initiating and planning the suicide bombing at the Park Hotel, in which 30 people were killed while celebrating the Passover seder, in addition to the bombing of a shopping mall, in which five were killed. Over 200 people were wounded in the two attacks.
Al-Sayad, who refused to cooperate with the court proceedings, told reporters on his way into court that, "It is all because of the occupation."
Al-Sayad was found with two more suicide belts and cyanide that were to be used in a massive poisoning attack. The prosecution claimed that al-Sayad was directly in touch with the Hamas leadership in Syria, which transferred large amounts of money to al-Sayad for the purchase of weapons to be used in terror attacks. Sentencing has not yet taken place, but the prosecution says it will request 35 life sentences for the murders and additional time for those who were wounded.
Al-Sayad's wife, Ihlas, is not worried, telling Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot that she is certain her husband will be released from prison far before he has served his full sentence. "Abbas and his friends will be freed a lot earlier than people think," she said.
A victim of the Park Hotel massacre was interviewed by Army Radio and expressed disappointment that Israel has the death sentence only for Nazis, but not for "Arab terrorists with identical goals."
Attempted Hospital Bomber Sentenced
On June 20th, female terrorist Wafa Samir Ibrahim Bas left her home in the northern Gaza village of Jabalya and was detained at the Erez Crossing as she was made her way toward Be'er Sheva's Soroka Hospital, where she had been regularly treated after having been burned in her home while cooking.
Bas expressed her regret in a statement to the military court preceding her sentencing, stating that she just wished to commit suicide due to the beatings and abuse she received from her father. Her attorney asked that the court have mercy on her due to her mental state, and the fact that she is not a member of a terror group but was sent to carry out the murder by her own parents.
The court rejected the claim that all she wanted to do was commit suicide, noting that Bas tried to detonate the bomb she was wearing at least twice after being apprehended. “If she wanted to kill herself she could have done it somewhere else, and not at the Erez crossing, where hundreds of citizens and soldiers pass each day,” the court ruled.
The court convicted her of attempting to cause death, but sentenced her to only 12 years in prison, despite the fact that the maximum sentence for the crime she was convicted of is 18 years. The judges atributed the reduced sentence to Bas' “extremely harsh personal circumstances.”