Palestinian who injured 12 soldiers in Jerusalem ramming gets 30 years

Sanad al-Turman jailed for 2020 terror attack on troops touring the capital ahead of Western Wall ceremony

By ToI Staff 19 April 2023, 10:24 am

Edit

Sanad Al-Turman, the suspect in a car-ramming attack that injured a dozen soldiers near the Jerusalem First Station, is seen at the District Court in Jerusalem on March 11, 2020 (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

A Palestinian man was sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment on Wednesday for the attempted murder of 12 soldiers in a Jerusalem car-ramming terror attack in 2020.

Prosecutors indicted Sanad al-Turman on terror charges of attempted murder for the attack.

The Jerusalem District Court also ruled that Turman will pay financial compensation to each of the injured soldiers — NIS 20,000 (approximately $5,500) to 11 soldiers and NIS 80,000 ($22,000) to the platoon sergeant, a total of NIS 300,000 (approximately $82,000).

In the predawn hours of February 6, Turman drove his car into a group of soldiers standing on Jerusalem’s David Remez Street outside the First Station, a popular entertainment hub in the capital.

The soldiers were members of the Golani Brigade who were at the First Station during a “heritage tour” ahead of an early morning swearing-in ceremony at the Western Wall.

According to the indictment, Turman, a resident of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of A-Tur, noticed soldiers marching during their trip, “slowing down his speed and traveling alongside the soldiers and contemplating carrying out a ramming attack,” before realizing he would not be successful, so he drove off.

Medics at the scene of a suspected car-ramming attack in Jerusalem on February 6, 2020. (MDA)

However, six minutes later, he returned to the scene and decided to go ahead with the attack. “He pressed the gas pedal, accelerated and pointed his vehicle at the soldiers,” the indictment charged.

Turman’s family has consistently maintained that what happened was not a terror attack but rather a traffic incident caused when Turman accidentally drove his vehicle onto the sidewalk.

After the attack, Turman quickly fled the scene, abandoning his car in the West Bank town of Beit Jala, south of Jerusalem.

IDF soldiers from the Golani brigade take part in their swearing-in ceremony on February 6, 2020 at the Western Wall in Jerusalem just hours after they were wounded in a car-ramming attack in the city. (Twitter screen capture/IDF)

He was later arrested at the Gush Etzion Junction in the southern West Bank.

Security officials strongly denied it was an accident and rejected the claim that Turman, who had no history of security offenses, was on his way to turn himself in at the time of his arrest, saying that he broke through a roadblock while fleeing and that soldiers at the scene of the attack had not drawn their weapons, so he would not have felt in danger.

According to security officials, Turman had made several Facebook posts possibly signaling his intentions, writing in one update: “I’ve found my answers,” and in another: “Whoever seeks peace with the enemy is living under an illusion. Never surrender.”