Fogel family murderer convicted

The Samaria District Military Court on Tuesday convicted Hakim Awad, 18, in the murder of five members of the Fogel family in Itamar five months ago.

Awad was also convicted in a series weapons-related and security offences. The trial of second defendant Amjad Awad is still ongoing separately as the two are testifying against each other.

Awad corrected the presiding judge several times as he read out the details of the indictment to which he confessed. The defendant noted that the Fogel children looked at him and Amjad through the house blinds, and not the other way around.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4103553,00.html

Tragic all around. Kids dead, lives ruined, lots more anger and hate. But you can't overlook it, so OK, "good".

This post is tantalizing vague and apparently contradictory. Can you elucidate?

Like when you have ambiguous feelings - as in this case - or when the situation really is ambiguous, as the real world often is.

It won't bring the family back, but at least there'll be no chance of him being free to murder more children...

The last line of the article said the prosecutors weren't seeking the death penalty. I didn't know the death penalty existed, and no matter how brutal and horrific the murders were, I'm strongly opposed to the death penalty even being an option...

Civil law in Israel allows for the death penalty only for Nazi war criminals (and has only been imposed once - on Adolph Eichmann).

Military courts in Israel, however, allow for the death penalty in other circumstances, although there has never been a case where this punishment has been handed down.

state.

This was to Meir Tobianski, executed in 1948 for treason by allegedly passing on information relating to targets for Jordanian artillery. After his execution, new evidence revealed that he was innocent of the charges. Perhaps as a result of this miscarriage of justice, military courts have not handed down the death penalty since then.

"miscarriage of justice" is really a mild description - as I understand, Tobianski's trial was pretty much a kangaroo court (for that matter, given that it happened only a few weeks after the IDF was established, I'm not sure if the mechanisms and procedures for a proper military trial even existed at the time, much less codified military law).

AFAIK, under current Israeli law, the death penalty can be imposed for treason during wartime and Nazi warcrimes - in addition, a military court can also sentence someone to death for desertion in the face of the enemy during wartime and for murder as part of terrorism. Military courts have, on rare occasions, handed down capital sentences for the latter, but they've invariably been commuted to life in prison on appeal.