Parents of victim of Hinawi terror 'waited 10 yrs for justice'

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Stanley and Joyce Boim hold a photo of their son David who was murdered by terrorists (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Stanley and Joyce Boim hold a photo of their son David who was murdered by terrorists
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
“I woke up to wonderful news this morning and yelled out ‘hooray’ when I heard that soldiers had shot and killed David’s murder, Amjad Hinawi,” Joyce Boim told The Jerusalem Post. “We have been waiting nearly ten years for justice to be served. I would be thrilled to personally meet the soldier who pulled the trigger.” Hours earlier, the army announced that Hinawi was shot and killed by security forces during a raid in Nablus to nab Hamas fugitives. The Boims, like the rest of the public, heard the news on the radio. Hinawi was one of two terrorists who in May 1996 shot and murdered Boim’s son David, 17, outside Beit El, where he was waiting to take a bus home to Har Nof in Jerusalem. Boim, who had joint US and Israeli citizenship, was an 11th grade yeshiva student at the community’s high school. Hinawi reportedly turned himself over to Palestinian Authority security forces shortly after Boim’s murder. Hinawi was confined to a PA prison for 21 months prior to a May 1998 trial in which a PA court in Jericho sentenced him to ten years’ hard labor for his complicity in the attack. Shortly after he was sentenced, PA security officials granted Hinawi a furlough, and he never returned. In court, Hinawi claimed he was innocent and blamed the shooting on Khalil Sharif, his accomplice. Sharif, who was in the past detained and released by PA security forces, was one of three suicide bombers who blew up in Jerusalem’s Ben Yehuda mall in September 1997. “I often wondered where Hinawi was and what he was doing,” said Boim. Monday was a day of mixed feelings for her; while elated over the news that her son’s murderer was killed, it also marked her mother’s yahrzeit. “We are happy to see that finally justice has been served. David’s murderer was eliminated, but there are so many others out there waiting to launch attacks. I pray that no more Israelis will be hurt,” she said. The Boim family moved to Jerusalem from the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1985. David Boim was 6 years old then, the fifth of seven children. Last year, Yechiel Gellman, David’s friend, testified before a Chicago federal court where the Boims filed suit against Islamic charities affiliated with Hamas who they believe supplied the funds for the terrorists who murdered their son. Gellman had been standing next to David when he was killed. Recalling the sequence of events, Gellman said, “Terrorists stopped their car and opened fire. This took like one, two, three seconds. They shot like 30 bullets.” In a landmark decision in December 2004, the Chicago federal court ruled that three Chicago-based Islamic organizations and one individual the Quranic Literacy Institute, the Islamic Association for Palestine, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and Muhammad Salah must pay the Boims $156 million in damages for David’s murder. This was the first time that the Federal Anti-Terrorism Act of 1990 was used against US-based charitable organizations that fund terrorism. The law allows American citizens who have been victims of international terror to sue in US courts those organizations and individuals who provide support for international terrorism.