Court orders review of Arab prisoner’s parole request

The Haifa District Court instructs the parole committee to reexamine the parole request of one of the people who attacked Jewish terrorist Eden Nathan Zada, who carried out the terror attack in Shfaram in 2005.

Shfaram resident Jamil Saffouri was sentenced in July 2013 to two years behind bars for attempted homicide, assaulting a police officer, obstructing police officers from carrying their duty and rioting. Six other residents of Shfaram were convicted apart from Saffouri – of which three were convicted for attempted homicide. Saffouri entered prison on January 2014 and applied for parole after having completed two thirds of his jail term.

Saffouri was part of a group of people who in August 2005 lynched Zada, a soldier who used his military-issued rifle to assault travelers on an intercity bus, killing four. Since he was attacked by multiple people, the state was unsure which of the blows he received killed him, and so the indictment against Saffouri and others accused all members of attempted homicide but none of murder.

Saffouri’s parole request was denied and he appealed the denial. The parole committee denied the request citing three reasons: intelligence reports saying Saffouri was conducting prohibited political activity behind bars; the defendant claims innocence and never expressed regrets for the outcome of his actions; and finally a lack of electronic cuffs allowing monitoring the wearer’s movement.

On Sunday, a panel of three justices at the Haifa court decided to instruct the parole committee to reexamine Saffouri’s parole request within 21 days. “The question which the parole committee must answer in this case is whether the prisoner’s conviction of being innocent poses any danger to the public and whether it is also expressed in negative behavior. In this case we did not find in the committee’s decision and in the material submitted for its perusal any indication that the prisoner’s conduct is inappropriate.”