1.      Yoram Skolnick:

One of three Israelis sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering a Palestinian, Skolnick was found guilty in March 1993, of shooting Musa Abu Sabha, a 20-year-old manacled Palestinian prisoner,133 suspected of stabbing a settler. Skolnick walked out of prison on parole on February 18, 2001, having served approximately seven and a half years of his life sentence.

Former President Ezra Weiztman twice reduced Skolnick’s sentence, first in 1997 to 15 years,134 and yet again in January 1999, to 11 years and three months.  Accordingly, Skolnick should have been released June 22, 2004. 

However, in 2000, the Prison Authority Parole Board decided to parole Skolnick even earlier, after he had served only two-thirds of his reduced sentence. In its decision, the Parole Board wrote: “The prisoner has expressed genuine remorse before the board. According to Skolnick, the event was a consequence of a one-time emotional fury and he has learned his lesson. In the course of his imprisonment, his behavior has been positive and without blemish. The board believes that the prisoner… has learned his lesson.”135   This decision caused a public furor and several petitions seeking to overturn it were filed in the High Court of Justice. Attorney General Elaykim Rubenstein condemned the decision, stating: “The Board seriously erred in not reaching the conclusion that his release could endanger public safety. Only seven years have passed since the murder and the circumstances of time and place, like the personality disorder from which Skolnick suffers, have not changed to an extent that could guarantee that Skolnick would not repeat his actions should he again get ‘carried away.’” 136   Skolnick’s early release was blocked by the High Court, which in April 2000 agreed that he remained a public threat.

However, less than a year later, Skolnick again became eligible for parole and the Parole Board once again approved his early release, on condition that he not live in the Occupied Territories.  The Parole Board Chairman insisted that he had “judged Skolnick according to [his] conscience and not [his] personal opinion or political opinions.” 137 This time, the Board’s decision to release Skolnick after serving less than eight years in prison was not opposed by the Attorney General, who suddenly no longer saw him as a threat to society. 138   This decision was key. According to the Parole Board Chairman, most prisoners, “especially the more serious cases, do not get their sentences reduced – particularly when the State Prosecutor objects.” 139   Apparently, the police did not oppose Skolnick’s release either, because in the words of another Parole Board Chairman, retired Judge David Mualem, in cases in which the “police warn us about the danger [prisoners] pose to society, [such] a warning is likely to trump the good behavior and we won’t release the prisoner.” 140

The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) petitioned the High Court of Justice against Skolnick’s release on the grounds that he remained a public threat, and that a decision to free him would send a dangerous message “to ideological Jewish criminals.” 141 The High Court first halted the scheduled release and ordered that the Board’s decision be reevaluated by a panel of seven justices. Eventually, however, although just a few months earlier the High Court had held that Skolnick was a public threat and therefore should not be released, this time, the Court upheld his early release from parole.142   Dissenting from the Court’s ruling, Justice Dorit Beinisch complained that “[the] result violates the sense of justice and the value of the sanctity of human life.” Justice Michael Cheshin wrote: “Human life is too valuable in my eyes for me to allow the Parole Board’s decision to pass without releasing a cry of protest.”143

While it ruled that the public interest factor was not compelling in this case, the High Court held that, in the future, parole decisions ought to be based on more than the possibility that a released convict might endanger public safety and the probability of his/her rehabilitation.  It accepted the PCATI petition’s contention that the Parole Board ought to consider whether an early release would encourage the public perception that a particular crime was not particularly reprehensible, as well as whether it might undermine the credibility of the legal system and encourage some individuals to show contempt for human life.

Soon thereafter, the Public Security Minister issued a set of criteria to guide future Parole Board decisions: 144 “In serious cases and in special circumstances in which the Parole Board feels that the prisoner’s release would seriously harm public faith in the justice system and law enforcement and undermine deterrence, when an irrational relationship is created between the seriousness of the crime and the circumstances surrounding it and the period of incarceration that the prisoner will end up serving if released early – the Parole Board is entitled to take these factors into consideration when making its decision.”145

Skolnick became a free man on February 18, 2001. Justice Minister Yossi Beilin expressed his personal disappointment with the “insufferable” reduction in the length of the prison term of a man who had committed such a contemptible crime.146

4.  Nachum Korman:

Nachum Korman, former security officer of the Hadar Beiter settlement, was charged with accidentally killing Hilmi Shusha, a 12-year old Palestinian boy, on October 27, 1996,while chasing a group of children who had been throwing stones at Israeli settlers. He claimed that Shusha “collapsed and fell,” simply because he had yelled at him.  However, testimony at his trial by two eyewitnesses and a pathologist’s report by Chief Coroner Yehuda Hiss contradicted his version of events. According to the two eyewitnesses, one of whom testified that he stood only three meters away, 147 Korman, who was wearing army boots, struck Shusha in the head and, after Shuhsa fell to the ground unconscious, stomped on his neck and hit him once on the head with the butt of his pistol.  The autopsy identified the cause of death as a kick or blow to the head.148

At the end of the three-year trial, Jerusalem District Court Judge Ruth Orr found Korman not guilty of the charge, based on “inconsistencies” in the testimony of the two young eyewitnesses and “inconclusive” autopsy findings. Incredibly, she held that “there is no reason for me to believe that there was any physical contact between the accused and the deceased… There are reasonable explanations for the injuries found during the autopsy of the deceased, given the area where he fell down – which was strewn with wood, pieces of iron, dirt and stones,149 and his transport in a jeep on a road full of potholes… the efforts to revive him by the resuscitation team,150 with constant interference by the local residents… It cannot be concluded from the fact that the accused was present at the location at the time of the deceased’s death that the accused had any part in causing the fall – and certainly not in his death.”151 Grasping for straws, she held that there was a “reasonable possibility” that the injury to Hilmi’s artery was caused by a birth defect – although the autopsy revealed no evidence any birth defect.152 Finally, Judge Orr concluded that Korman was not guilty because “[t]here is no logical explanation as to why the accused would undertake such a barbaric act.”153

Prosecutors appealed Judge Orr’s ruling to the Israeli Supreme Court, which overruled the acquittal, convicted Korman of second-degree manslaughter and remanded the case back to the District Court for sentencing. The Supreme Court held that Judge Orr had relied on the wrong degree of proof, i.e., “absolute” proof, and emphasized: “A reasonable doubt is created when the possibility of innocence is real and is not based on a distant theoretical possibility.”154  In the words of Justice Benish, “[i]n the absence of another person present, I can only conclude that the defendant hit the deceased and caused his death.” Any other explanation was just “not logical.”155

The Supreme Court found that while Korman did not intend to kill,156 he had acted recklessly and had been aware of the possibility that a blow to such a vulnerable part of the body could be fatal to a child.  “The state of mind necessary for a manslaughter conviction includes rashness and an awareness of the possibility that the action might cause death, and includes disregard of the lethal consequences of the act.”157

On remand, Judge Orr recommended that an agreement be reached between the State Attorney’s Office and Korman’s attorney regarding Korman sentencing. The parties agreed to request a sentence of six months community service and a 15 month suspended prison sentence – shorter than the sentence usually imposed for car theft - and 70,000 NIS (approximately $17,500) compensation to the boy’s family. The recommendation was approved by Judge Orr, who found as mitigating factors that Korman had no prior criminal record 158 and that he had personal and family problems.159

Plea bargains or sentencing agreements in criminal matters, by their very nature, involve concessions by both sides. In this case, Korman gave up nothing, while the State conceded a great deal.  Korman never admitted that he had beaten or even touched the child. As he left the courthouse after sentencing, having already served the eight months to which he had been sentenced during his trial, Korman exclaimed: “I take no responsibility for the boy’s death… I admit to nothing, and I continue to regard myself as innocent.”160

The family of the victim expressed disappointment at Korman’s sentence, saying that Judge Orr had essentially given settlers a license to kill Palestinians.161 Former Attorney General Michael Ben-Yar called the sentence “completely incomprehensible.” 162 It is apparent that Korman’s sentence was merely ‘symbolic.’

Following Korman’s release, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), together with the victim’s father, filed a petition with the High Court of Justice against the Jerusalem District Court, State’s Attorney Edna Arbel and Attorney General Elaykin Rubenstein, demanding that Korman’s sentence be revoked and that the Attorney General and State’s Attorney be ordered to appeal the light sentence. The petition also demanded that the State Attorney’s Office be ordered to detail the considerations that led to the Korman sentencing agreement, as well as the considerations that guide the State’s Attorney’s Office, in general, in its treatment of settlers who injure Palestinians, and to set clear criteria to ensure that similar sentencing agreements would not be accepted in the future.163

On January 21, 2001, the very same day that Korman was sentenced, an Israeli military court sentenced Su’ad Hilmi Ghazal, a Palestinian girl from Sabastiya, to six and a half years in prison. In 1998, when she was 15 and allegedly suffering from mental problems, Ghazal had stabbed and injured an Israeli settler from Shave Shomron. She had been held incommunicado for 37 days, without access to a lawyer or her family, 17 of those days were spent in solitary confinement. Since she was tried under military law, Ghazal will not be eligible to have her sentence reduced by the Israeli President, or to be paroled for good behavior.164

On January 23, 2001, in response to massive criticism by human rights groups, the media and then Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, State Prosecutor Edna Arbel admitted that her office had made a mistake in agreeing to Korman’s light sentence.165