Man jailed for 7 years for stealing sound equipment left at Nova site that belonged to man killed while helping save others

The Beersheba Magistrate’s Court sentenced a man today to seven years in jail for stealing sound equipment worth about half a million dollars from the site of the Nova music festival days after Hamas massacred hundreds of people there on October 7, 2023, the Southern District Attorney’s Office says in a statement.

Ram Shaheen stole the equipment and retrieved some of it from police by pretending to be an associate of the owner, Matan Lior, who was killed while helping others flee the festival, according to the statement. Shaheen even visited Lior’s mourning family as the equipment was in his possession, prosecutors said.

Shaheen and an accomplice, Daniel Hasson, twice traveled to the Nova site, once just two days after the massacre, in order to steal equipment, according to the indictment.

Shaheen was convicted of aggravated theft and fraudulent gain. In addition to his prison sentence, he is given 12 months’ probation and ordered to pay a NIS 60,000 ($19,580) fine, as well as NIS 75,000 ($24,475) in damages to Lior’s family and NIS 25,000 ($8160) to Lior’s business partner Amitai Nahum.

Hasson was convicted in a plea deal of attempted fraudulent gain. The court sentences him to 40 months in jail and ordered him to pay a NIS 30,000 ($9,790) fine, as well as NIS 40,000 ($13,015) in damages to Lior’s family and NIS 15,000 ($4,880) to Nahum.

Another accomplice, Sun Tevel, was convicted of assisting theft, also in a plea deal. His sentence will be handed down at a later date after he told the court he couldn’t attend the sentencing today for medical reasons, prosecutors say.