Border Police officer has sentence doubled over death of Palestinian

Jerusalem, 19 August, 2018 (TPS) --  

The High Court of Justice on Sunday doubled the sentence of Ben Deri, a Border Police officer  who shot dead a Palestinian teenager during a riot in the West Bank town of Beitunia four years ago. Deri had initially been charged with homicide after the prosecution said he had intentionally used live ammunition instead of rubber bullets as troops clashed with Palestinians in the town near Ramallah. However in a plea bargain, the charge was amended to negligent homicide after he admitted to mistakenly using a live round and Deri was sentenced to a nine-month jail term. Justice Noam Solberg in doubling Deri’s sentence to 18 months, criticized the lower court ruling, saying it had had not taken into account the loss of life and the fact that Deri had not faced a life-threatening situation when he decided to open fire.