The Tel Aviv District Court on Sunday sentenced a 27-year-old resident of northern Israel to 14 years in prison and ordered him to pay NIS 100,000 in compensation with parole after he admitted and was convicted of attempting to murder his younger brother on the grounds of his sexual orientation.
Another brother of the two, 30, — who also confessed and was convicted of conspiracy to commit the murder — was sentenced to six years in prison, a NIS 15,000 fine, and was ordered to pay NIS 45,000 in compensation with parole, also on Sunday.
According to the verdict, in 2019 the two tried to murder their 16-year-old brother in a youth center, which he fled to due to his sexual orientation.A friend of the brothers, who confessed and was convicted of aiding and abetting sabotage with intent, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison and was ordered to pay NIS 50,000 in compensation with parole.
According to the amended indictment, filed by Attorney Dia Ben Asa of the Tel Aviv District Attorney's Office as part of a plea bargain, one of the brothers in March 2019 discovered correspondences of a sexual nature between his younger brother and another man.
Two months later, the younger brother tried to file a complaint with the police and escape from his home, but his older brother located him. In June 2019, the 16-year-old moved to the a hostel for young people who fled their home due to their sexual orientation.
One month later, according to the indictment, his brothers arrived at the hostel accompanied by their friend, and one of them attacked the young man and stabbed him many times all over his body until he collapsed.
In the verdict, the court noted that "the degree of harm to the values protected in the offenses of attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder is real, even though the complainant survived and his life was luckily saved, this was certainly not thanks to the defendants, who wished him dead."
The verdict added that "the defendant committed a vile, heinous and cruel crime that undermines the morals of society, while conspiring with the other defendant to murder the complainant — their little brother, and he tried to cause the death using his own hands, while holding a knife, stabbing him cruelly and without mercy again and again, in various parts of his body while ignoring his brother's pleas that he stop."
The judges further stressed that "although today there is a more open and respectful discourse on accepting difference and otherness, and on the basic right of every person to live their life as they wish and desire — we are still, unfortunately, a long way off from the cultural change any enlightened and respectful society desires."
"A deep, social inspection into the background and the public atmosphere that enabled the defendants to act as they did is now necessary," they concluded.