Israel jails Palestinian driver for alleged involvement in stabbing

The Israeli magistrate’s court in Jerusalem today issued a prison sentence against a man who is accused of driving three Palestinian youth before they carried out a stabbing and shooting attack that killed an Israeli police officer and injured another in Jerusalem’s Old City in February.

The three were shot dead on the scene.

Palestinian Prisoner’s Society lawyer, Mufeed Al-Hajj, said the court formally sentenced 57-year-old Khamis Tamim Al-Salaymeh to two years in Israeli prison after convicting him for “causing death due to negligence”, claiming that he drove the three Palestinians from northern Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank to East Jerusalem.

The indictment against Al-Salaymeh was issued on 16 April after he was detained on 8 February.

Al-Salaymeh had reportedly admitted that he drove the youths, as part of his job driving Palestinian workers, but had no knowledge the three were planning an attack.

Israeli media reported at the time that two of the three were barred from entrance into Israel and that all three had crossed Israel’s Separation Wall illegally.