Husband of Palestinian stoning victim calls for hearing in international court
Yakoub Rabi says he has no faith in Israeli justice system after police only charge one teen with killing his wife, Aisha
The husband of a Palestinian woman who was killed in a roadside stoning last year said on Thursday he had no faith in Israeli justice and wanted a hearing in an international court.
Yakoub Rabi, 52, was driving in the northern West Bank last October when his wife, Aisha, was killed by a rock that blew through the windshield of the car and hit her in the head. She was 47 and a mother of eight children.
The Central District Attorney’s Office filed an indictment earlier Thursday against the Israeli teen suspected of killing her.
Yakoub rebuked the police for only charging one youth in his wife’s death.
“The Israeli police and intelligence both know who hit us, leading to my wife’s death, but they charged one person only,” he told AFP.
“When they hit our car with stones they were more than four people,” he said. “I want all those who killed my wife to be tried in an international court.”
On Wednesday, the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s court revealed that DNA belonging to the main suspect was found on the stone that fatally struck the Palestinian woman in the head.
The 16-year-old suspect from the central West Bank was charged with manslaughter, aggravated stone throwing at a moving vehicle and intentional sabotage of a vehicle. Each of the charges connected to the killing of Aisha Rabi was qualified as having been carried out “in the context of a terrorist act.”
The suspect could face considerable jail time, as a manslaughter conviction alone carries a maximum sentence of 20 years behind bars. However, he avoided murder charges, which would have put him at risk of life in prison.
An official with knowledge of the investigation told The Times of Israel that the prosecution would not be pursuing charges against the other four suspects in the case because the “evidentiary basis against them was insufficient.”
The attack was the most deadly incident of alleged Jewish terror since the 2015 firebombing of a Palestinian home in Duma.
Earlier this month, Yakoub told The Times of Israel that only justice would deter future attacks.
“I hope those who killed my wife will go to prison,” Yakoub said. “It is important that they go there because others who want to carry out similar crimes need to know they will pay a heavy price. I don’t want to see anyone else have to endure what my family has endured.”
Yakoub, who speaks Hebrew, lives in Biddya, a village in the northern West Bank, and works in Elad, a city in central Israel, as a contractor. He said he has been working in Israel since the early 1980s.
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