George Garib being led into Nazareth District Court January 29, 2019 for sentencing. Garib, 23, was handed a 5-year prison term for running over and killing police sergeant Natan Yossipov in 2016. (Screen Capture/ YouTube)
Family members reacted with anger Tuesday when the Nazareth District Court sentenced George Garib, 23, to five years in prison for running down and killing a traffic cop who attempted to stop his vehicle for a spot check in 2016.
“This is not justice. A human life is worth five years?” the officer’s widow, Avishag Yossipov, shouted at the presiding judge, Ynet news reported.
Sergeant First Class Natan Yossipov, 49, was run over and critically injured in the hit-and-run in Nazareth on February 28, 2016, after he attempted to stop Garib’s vehicle. Yossipov died of his wounds three months later.
Garib was driving his mother’s vehicle, which he was not insured to drive.
Avishag Yossipov (left) and her daughter Sivan speak to reporters outside the Nazareth District Court on January 29, 2016. George Garib was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 5 years in jail for running down and killing Yossipov’s husband, Sergeant First Class Natan Yossipov, in 2016. (Screen capture/YouTube)
In addition to the five-year sentence for manslaughter, Garib was fined NIS 40,000 ($10,800) and will not be able to drive for 15 years.
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“This man has not sat in jail a single day,” Yossipov said. “Not only did he not confess, he did not even apologize. It proves that there is no justice in the State of Israel, it should have been a deterrence precedent.”
The prosecution said it would appeal the sentence, Hadashot TV news reported.
At the time, the police called it “a serious incident in which a police officer was attacked with a vehicle in the line of duty and left bleeding and without any assistance offered.”
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Garib later turned himself in at a Nazareth police station and admitted that he had taken his mother’s car without her knowledge.
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