Live UpdateFrom the Liveblog of Wednesday, August 16, 2023

5 MKs sign petition seeking to ease jail conditions of Palestinian family’s killer

16 August 2023, 4:59 pm 4 Edit

Amiram Ben Uliel, convicted of the Duma arson murder in July 2015, in which three members of the Dawabsha family were killed, attends a hearing on his appeal, at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, on March 7, 2022. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

At least five MKs, including four from the Likud party, sign a petition calling to ease the jail conditions of a right-wing extremist convicted of killing three members of a Palestinian family in an arson attack in 2015, the Ynet news site reports.

The petition calls for Amiram Ben Uliel to be released from solitary confinement and sent a special jail ward for religious inmates, where he would receive better conditions.

Among the signatories are Likud MKs Amit Halevi, Ariel Kelner, Nissim Vaturi and Avichai Boaron. MK Limor Son Har-Melech of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party also signs the petition.

Ben Uliel was sentenced to three life sentences plus 20 years for the deadly firebombing in the West Bank village of Duma in which Riham and Saad Dawabsha were killed along with their 18-month-old son, Ali Saad. Only the couple’s eldest son, Ahmed, survived the terror attack, with terrible burns; he was 5 years old at the time.

Ben Uliel was found guilty in 2020 of three counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder, arson and conspiring to commit a racially motivated crime, as part of a “terrorist act.”

The petition comes days after a prominent rabbi called for Ben Uliel to be released.