Teen given just 9 months community service for attacks on Arab bus drivers

Benjamin Yehuda Gutfreund, 19, one of two teens who attacked two Arab bus drivers and a municipal worker in December in Jerusalem, will be sentenced to perform nine months of community service as part of a plea deal, the Kan public broadcaster reports.

The suspects, then aged 17 and 18, rode around the Ramot neighborhood on an electric bike and attacked innocent passersby, including a bus driver who suffered a broken arm and a sanitation worker who suffered broken teeth and a fractured rib. Police said that two buses were also damaged.

Police say that the punishment will deter the suspect, and says he will be put on probation and pay compensation to the victims.

“The arrangement was formulated in accordance with the defendant’s part in the incident compared to another defendant, the absence of a criminal record, and his young age, and it balances the severity of the acts and the concrete circumstances,” police say.

The Transportation Workers Union slams the “lenient sentence,” saying that it “makes it clear that the spilling of bus drivers’ blood is permitted.”