Jerusalem – The Supreme Court confirmed the two life term sentence of Jewish terrorist Jack Tytell for murdering Palestinians, on Tuesday.
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Tytell was sentenced by the Jerusalem District Court in November 2015 to two life sentences and an additional 30 years in prison for the murdering of two Palestinians and an assortment of other crimes.
Tytell’s lawyer appealed later appealed the November 2015 sentence, which the Supreme Court rejected on Tuesday, confirming the sentence.
Right before the sentence was handed down Tytell said that he had no regrets and was proud of what he had done.
Although he was only sentenced in November 2015, he had been convicted back in January 2015.
In the lower court’s explanation of its verdict, despite Tytell saying that an “angel” had controlled him, the court found that Tytell was not insane and was “responsible for his actions,” which made it more likely that he would get a maximum life sentence.
In May 2015, the court had accepted an unusual plea bargain made between the district attorney and lawyers representing Tytell, and determined that the defendant had murdered two Palestinians and committed other violent crimes from 1997-2008.
Judges Zvi Segal, Moshe Hacohen and Moshe Yair Drori said the court determined that Tytell committed the acts attributed to him in an amended indictment.
This indictment includes 10 of the original 14 charges against Tytell, including two murders and two attempted murders, after the prosecution agreed to remove charges relating to attempted attacks that the authorities had foiled and general language about Tytell¹s hatred for those who disagreed with or were different from him being the motivator for his crimes.
The court did not formally convict Tytell until after carefully reviewing whether he could be held criminally responsible for his actions when he committed the offenses.
Although he agreed to admit to the charges, Tytell refused to plead guilty in court when he was convicted because he does not recognize its authority.
Instead, in a highly unusual procedure that required special court approval, Tytell¹s attorney Asher Ohayon told the court that Tytell admitted to the charges in the amended indictment.
Courts normally require an accused to admit to an offense in-person as a safeguard to his rights, to be sure they have not been coerced, or is confused about what they are admitting to.
Dubbed “the Jewish terrorist,” Florida-born Tytell, was originally indicted in 2009.
In 1997, he murdered Palestinian taxi driver Samir Balbisi, who was found shot dead in his cab.
When Tytell was still in the US, he decided to murder Palestinians and came to Israel for that purpose, smuggling a gun into the country by hiding it in a VCR.
Tytell spent his first weeks in Israel with friends in Jerusalem.
Later, he acquired bullets for his smuggled gun, and sought out a suitable victim.
Tytell chose to murder an Arab taxi driver because he thought he could ask the driver to first drive him to a suitable spot.
On June 8, 1997, Tytell went to the Arab taxi stand at Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, where he hired Balbisi and told him to take him to a hotel.
After driving for a while, however, Tytell told Balbisi to stop and wait, before shooting the Palestinian in the head at point-blank range.
Tytell also murdered a second Palestinian man, Beduin shepherd Isaa Mousa’af Mahamada, who was shot dead near the West Bank settlement of Carmel, near Hebron, in August 1997.
In 2000, Tytell made aliya and lived in Shvut Rachel, a West Bank settlement north of Jerusalem, where he married and had four children. That same year he was arrested by police on suspicion of carrying out both of the 1997 murders, but was later released due to lack of evidence.
In March 2008, according to the indictment, Tytell attempted to murder 15-year-old Amiel Ortiz, a Messianic Jewish teen from Ariel.
Tytell sent a bomb in a Purim gift basket to Ortiz¹s home, which exploded when the youth opened it.
Other charges include planting homemade explosives in September 2008 at the home of Prof. Ze’ev Sternhell, a left-wing scholar from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Tytell also attempted to murder a resident of the Beit Jamal monastery near Beit Shemesh because he believed its inhabitants were missionaries who tried to convert Jewish children.
Following his arrest in 2009, Tytell was remanded into custody in a secure psychiatric facility, and though an initial psychiatric assessment in 2010 deemed him unfit to stand trial, later tests showed that he was able to face prosecution.
Tytell¹s lawyers had previously argued that their client did not know right from wrong when he committed the acts, and therefore the court could not impose a prison term.
At least one expert said that Tytell was insane, but the prosecution successfully argued that Tytell was responsible for his actions when committing the crimes.
The court said that it accepted another expert opinion that regardless of whether Tytell may have had episodes of insanity during his trial and imprisonment, if he had been insane years earlier when he committed the crimes, he would have deteriorated far more by this time.
Rather, based on the above and the rational manner in which Tytell gave statements to police when arrested, the court agreed with the expert that any episodes of insanity came after the crimes and during imprisonment.
If he was a Palestinian he would get 10-years with the opportunity to be let out in 3-years for another deal !
Arguably, the fact that he stated his position is proof that he was insane and has remained so.
They should do the same with several other Jewish terrorists who are being held in jail either pending trial or appeal if the facts show that they’ve engaged in these kind of hate crimes.
FREE TYTELL!