Ahed Tamimi agrees to plea deal, to serve eight months: Reports
Palestinian teenager has been sentenced to eight months for slapping an Israeli soldier
Seventeen-year-old Palestinian Ahed Tamimi has accepted a plea deal, according to Israeli media (AFP)
Wednesday 21 March 2018
A Palestinian teenage girl on trial for slapping an Israeli soldier accepted a plea deal on Wednesday under which she will be sentenced to eight months in prison, Israel's Haaretz news website said.
Ahed Tamimi's lawyer was not immediately available to comment. The attorney told Reuters earlier that a plea bargain over the December incident, which turned Tamimi into a hero to Palestinians, had been offered by military prosecutors.
Her trial began last month, behind closed doors, and she faced 12 charges, including aggravated assault.
Tamimi has spent four months in administrative detention so far.
The Israeli military court where Ahed Tamimi is being tried had not yet decided on whether to accept the agreement reached with prosecutors, lawyer Gaby Lasky told AFP.
Tamimi was 16 at the time of the December incident. She has since turned 17.
Her sentence would include time served and a fine of 5,000 shekels ($1,430, 1,166 euros), said Lasky, meaning she could be released in the summer.
She would plead guilty to only four of the 12 charges against her under the agreement, including assault, incitement and two counts of obstructing soldiers, Lasky said.
Lasky however said she only planned to present the plea bargain to the military court if it first accepts an agreement with Tamimi's mother, Nariman Tamimi.
A plea deal for Nariman Tamimi would also be for eight months in jail including time served, she said.
The court was expected to decide on the matter later Wednesday, according to Lasky.
Global attention
Israeli journalist Asaf Ronel, the editor of the newspaper's foreign desk, tweeted that in comparison, Elor Azaria, the Israeli soldier convicted of manslaughter after shooting dead an incapacitated Palestinian at close range, will serve a total of nine months when he is released later this year.
The case drew global attention. Amnesty International called Tamimi the "Rosa Parks of Palestine", and the small courtroom was often packed with journalists, diplomats and international observers during hearings, during which Tamimi was led into court in shackles.
A group of American cultural figures, including actors Danny Glover and Rosario Dawson and novelist Alice Walker, signed a petition calling for her release and comparing her case to those of “the children of immigrants and communities of color who face police brutality in the United States”.
The Israeli military was keen for the trial to end, according to Haaretz, due to the negative coverage the army was getting in international media.
