From Israeli-Kurdish Jew freed from prison after 11 years for killing cab driver
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleLazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
An Israeli citizen walks free from more than a decade in prison in Iraqi Kurdistan after facing the death penalty for the 2015 killing of a taxi driver.
Ben Chasin, a Kurdish Jew with Canadian and Israeli citizenship, traveled to Iraqi Kurdistan in 2015 to visit family and stayed to join Kurdish forces fighting the Islamic State, according to media reports.
A cab driver in Sulaymaniyah overheard him speaking in Hebrew, and threatened to turn him in to ISIS. He said that he shot the cab driver in self-defense.
Chasin was sentenced to death in 2020, but a campaign led by ultra-Orthodox groups in the US and Europe led to his sentence being overturned last year amid a financial settlement with the victim’s family.
Israeli Ben Hassin is free after 11 years in a prison in Iraq's Kurdish region. He is expected in Israel shortly. A death sentence over an accidental killing was lifted after a pardon last year. pic.twitter.com/9pEf03WEGr
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) September 16, 2026
“I’ve waited too long for this,” Chasin says in a video after being freed. “It’s tears of joy.” According to the video, Chasin will arrive in Israel this week.
The Times of Israel Community.