ISIS-linked terrorist gets 3 life sentences plus 40 years for killing 3 in Jerusalem
Wasim a-Sayed was convicted of 2019 murder of Yehuda and Tamar Kaduri, 2022 murder of Ivan Tarnovski; court rules he will never be eligible for release, even in diplomatic deal
The Jerusalem District Court on Monday sentenced Wasim a-Sayed, an ISIS-affiliated terrorist from Hebron who murdered three people in Jerusalem, to three life sentences and another 40-year prison sentence.
A-Sayed murdered Yehuda Kaduri, 71, and Tamar Kaduri, 68, in their home in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Armon Hanatziv in 2019, and murdered Ivan Tarnovski, a foreign worker from Moldova in 2022 in the same neighborhood.
The day before he murdered the Kaduris he had tried to slit the throat of a 14-year old girl also in Armon Hanatziv, but she managed to escape harm, and he also severely wounded Tarnovski’s roommate in the 2022 attack.
A-Sayed was convicted in September last year on terror charges of two counts of premeditated murder, one count of murder under aggravated circumstances, and two counts of attempted murder.
The court ruled that the severity of his crimes means he will not be eligible for release under any future diplomatic agreement the government might enter into, essentially ruling out his release as part of a hostage deal or similar.
In 2019, A-Sayed, who had associated himself with the ISIS terror organization, crossed into the Armon Hanatziv neighborhood and stabbed Tamar Kaduri to death and then slit the throat of her husband Yehuda Kaduri in their apartment.
In March 2022, A-Sayed entered the same neighborhood and stabbed Tarnovski to death, also severely wounding his roommate.
A-Sayed confessed to the crimes in 2022 after he was arrested by police, telling investigators he had been looking for Jews to kill.
“The accused slaughtered… three people and tried to slaughter two others, by slitting their throats while they were inside their homes or were on their way out, just because they were Jews, or because he thought they were Jews,” says the Jerusalem District Court in announcing its sentence.
Before his arrest in 2022, the case was regarded by officials as “one of the hardest to solve in Jerusalem over the past few years.”
After hitting a dead end in the investigation in 2020, police released security camera footage from the night of the murders and asked for the public’s help in identifying the suspect. The following year, they released a sketch of him.
When a-Sayed was arrested by Border Police officers in March of 2022, police did not know he was linked to either the Kaduri case or the killing of the Moldovan, Tarnovski. According to police, a-Sayed was detained with a knife on his person while trying to cross the West Bank security barrier.
He was transferred to the Shin Bet over his alleged Islamic State ties, with the statement from police and the security agency saying investigators later determined he had carried out the murders.
According to a 2022 report on Channel 13, a-Sayed told interrogators: “I decided that I will murder Jews but I won’t tell anyone about it. It will only be between myself and my God. I decided that Islamic State is my path. I looked for Jewish victims. I wanted to murder a man or a woman but no children.”
