Court delays start of Hebron shooter jail sentence

A military court ruled Thursday that IDF soldier Elor Azaria, convicted of manslaughter for shooting an unarmed Palestinian attacker, will not begin to serve his jail sentence until after his appeal is heard.

On Wednesday, Azaria’s attorney appealed his 18-month military prison sentence and filed a motion to delay his entry into prison, set for March 5, until the end of the appeals process.

The prosecution, which was initially opposed to the postponement, withdrew the objection after one of the judges said that Azaria “currently poses no risk to the public, he is not a flight risk, and he has the right to an appeal.”

Azaria will remain in open detention on his army base, as he has been throughout the legal process.

In light of the appeal, the army prosecution is considering whether to appeal the sentence as well and ask for a stiffer punishment. Prosecutors originally asked for three to five years.

Azaria shot dead Palestinian Abdel Fattah al-Sharif in Hebron last March, a few minutes after Sharif had stabbed an IDF soldier from Azaria’s unit and was lying wounded and disarmed on the ground. Azaria, a combat medic, was filmed shooting Sharif in the head.

After a months-long trial that deeply divided the country, the Jaffa Military Court in January ruled Azaria had violated the IDF’s rules of engagement and convicted him of manslaughter. Last month, the court sentenced him to 18 months in prison.

Three members of Azaria’s defense team announced they were resigning from the case on Wednesday after the appeal was filed, saying that they had disagreed with the family’s decision to pursue an appeal.

The lawyers said in a statement that they believed Azaria would have been better served by pursuing a different route, an apparent reference to plans to request a pardon.

After lodging the appeal, Azaria is left with two possible tracks for obtaining a pardon, either from the IDF chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, who has already vehemently criticized Azaria’s actions and so is considered unlikely to grant a pardon, or the president of Israel, Reuven Rivlin.

However, the Azaria family wants to have his name cleared, Israel Radio quoted the lawyers as saying.

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman on Thursday said he opposed granting him a pardon.

“First of all, no pardon,” Liberman told the Ynet news site, a position distinct from that of many right-wing politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who have called for Azaria’s pardon. “You can shorten [the sentence], but only within 16 days after the sentence is handed down,” Liberman said.

The defense minister said he opposes a pardon once a court issues a conviction and sentence for manslaughter for an IDF soldier, but suggested he would have preferred a disciplinary, rather than a criminal, process for handling the incident in the first place.

“I’ve said more than once that this whole legal track, appeal after appeal, was the wrong path, but that’s what the family decided,” he said.

Liberman also said that in his opinion the military should not appeal for a harsher sentence.