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| By Israel Insider staff October 13, 2007 |
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Two Israeli Arabs have been charged with manslaughter for wantonly running down and killing a Jewish girl on Yom Kippur. Asad Nasim Shibli (20) and Muhammad Mamon Shibli (21), from the Arab village of a-Shibli, were charged with entered neighboring Kfar Tavor as Yom Kippur began, driving an All Terrain Vehicle at high speed into a crowd that had gathered outside the town's synagogue, killing Tal Zino, 9.
The accused was driving the vehicle despite the fact that his license had been recently revoked, due to a traffic violation. The owner of the ATV maintained that the suspect had stolen the vehicle from him, Haaretz reported.
The charge sheet shows that the two planned their action in advance. In early September, two or three weeks before Yom Kippur, the driver drove his ATV wildly near the Kfar Tavor gas station. When a uniformed Border Police volunteer criticized him for this, he answered: "Wait and see what we'll do to you on Yom Kippur." He then made a rude gesture at the volunteer and drove off wildly, Israel National News reported.
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"Wait and see what we'll do to you on Yom Kippur."
The Driver who killed the 9-year-old girl on Yom Kippur eve, three weeks prior to the attack
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The prosecution initially intended to charge the driver with murder but, according to Israel National News, leftist reactions led it to change the charges to manslaughter. Arabs and news media said that charges of murder for a driving "accident" were unprecedented and would never have been filed against Jews.
Kfar Tavor residents accused the driver of killing Tal on purpose, saying that Asad Shibli ignored numerous requests to leave the area before killing the girl, who had been riding her bicycle. He and his friend had been driving at approximately 120 kph down a street full of children. The Arabs claimed that they were unaware that Yom Kippur had begun.
The driver maintained that he had entered Kfar Tavor to draw money from a cash machine at the bank and was then frightened by some local residents and began to drive fast, consequently losing control of the vehicle. Investigators did not accept his version of events, since the ATM is situated at the entrance to Kfar Tavor while the synagogue is in the middle of the village, Haaretz reported.
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