Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
IDF soldier Elor Azaria, right, convicted on the manslaughter of a wounded Palestinian, is embraced by his mother Oshra at the start of his sentencing hearing in a military court in Tel Aviv, February 21, 2017. (AFP/Pool/Jim Hollander)
Defense Minister Israel Katz says he has submitted a request to the president to give a pardon to Elor Azaria, a former Israeli soldier convicted of killing an incapacitated Palestinian attacker in 2016.
The move by Katz comes ahead of the Likud party’s primaries and the upcoming national election.
“It is unreasonable that after a decade, an outstanding soldier who was convicted of an offense committed during his operational service should continue to pay such a heavy price,” Katz says in a statement.
He says that Azaria’s conviction “sends a negative message to our sons and daughters who are sent to face danger and serve in combat units and dangerous places.”
“There is room to allow Elor to rehabilitate himself and begin a new life,” Katz adds.
Azaria served nine months of an 18-month prison term for killing Abdel-Fattah al-Sharif, a Palestinian who had stabbed an Israeli soldier and had already been shot and subdued 11 minutes earlier, in the West Bank city of Hebron on March 24, 2016. Azaria has always insisted he behaved correctly in the shooting.
The pardon request seeks to shorten the time before Azaria’s criminal record is automatically cleared.
There is no immediate comment from President Isaac Herzog on the matter.
Israeli soldiers prepare to remove the body of a Palestinian stabber who was shot in the head by IDF soldier Elor Azaria as he lay wounded on the ground after injuring an Israeli soldier at the entrance to the Jewish settler enclave of Tal Rumeda in the West Bank town of Hebron on March 24, 2016 (HAZEM BADER/AFP)
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