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Silwan resident sentenced to 15 years in prison for terrorist attack
Terrorist from east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan get jailtime for attempted vehicular attack that wounded 2 Israelis; defense claimed he suffered from suicidal tendencies, depression; defense psychologist says terrorist merely wanted to die, committed attack so he could do so and be called a martyr for it.
The Jerusalem District Court sentenced Tuesday morning 20-year-old Silwan resident Morad Rajbi, who wounded two Israelis in an October 2016 vehicular attack in Jerusalem, to 15 years in prison.
Rajbi confessed and was convicted of attempted murder as part of a plea bargain. He was also ordered to pay the two people he wounded NIS 30,000 in restitution.
Rajbi decided to carry out the vehicular attack using his motorcycle and a kitchen knife on October 19, 2016, the amended indictment said. He rode his bike through the capital's Hebron Road at 6pm when he noticed two Jewish men with religious appearances, Yaakov Lomega and Vadim Blakitzki.
File photo (Photo: Israel Police)
Rajbi accelerated and rammed his motorcycle into Lomega. He then disembarked from the bike and approached Blakitzki while holding his knife in his left hand and his helmet in his right, and beat him with the helmet.
The terrorist had no criminal record prior to the attack and worked as a sanitation worker in Jerusalem's Cinema City complex. He was not politically involved before the attack, his parents claimed.
However, a clinical psychologist's opinion submitted by the defense said Rajbi had suicidal tendencies and suffered from depression in the past year due to ongoing family problems and his inability to pursue a higher education.
Rajbi previously worked in sanitation in Jerusalem's Cinema City complex (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)
In addition, a week before the attack his father had beaten him in the neighborhood's main square in front of his friends, and he tried committing suicide twice before the incident. Rajbi also told a psychologist he could not understand what came over him the day of the attack, or why he had committed it.
"It was not a nationalistically-motivated terror attack, but an act carried out due to personal motives that were superimposed with a nationalistic motivation. He did not intend to become a martyr, he intended to die, but expected to be called a martyr by sheer virtue of the fact that he died," the psychologist, Dr. Masalha, explained in court.
