Elor Azaria Gets 18 Month Sentence
Elor Azaria, the IDF soldier convicted of manslaughter for the killing of a neutralized terrorist last March, has been sentenced to a year-and-a-half prison sentence. He will serve the sentence in a military prison and will have his military rank reduced from Sergeant to Private. Azaria also received an additional suspended sentence.
The defense has already said it will appeal the conviction to the Supreme Court and has requested a stay of sentence until the appeal has been heard. The prosecution, which requested a 3-5 year sentence, has objected and demands he immediately begin serving the sentence. Military Judge Col. Maya Heller, who headed the court martial, agreed to the defense’s request and Azaria will begin serving his sentence in 14 days.
The maximum sentence is 20 years.
Azaria was convicted by a military court on January 4.
Following the publication of video footage of the incident Moshe Ya’alon, who was then still Defense Minister, condemned what he regarded as a gross breach of military discipline and of the IDF’s ethical code. This caused a rift between him and the PM, and was one of the reasons Netanyahu decided to replace him with Avigdor Lieberman.
The IDF investigated the incident, despite the poisoned atmosphere it created. Right-wingers applauded Azaria, saying he should get a medal, not a court martial. Several senior politicians, including MKs and cabinet ministers criticized Defense Minister Ya’alon and Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot for not supporting a soldier in uniform. On the other side of the divide, Azaria was called a murderer who had shamed and dishonored the IDF, and should be brought to justice and severely punished, in order to set an example and prevent similar recurrences.
The right wing groups which have been supporting the soldier demonstrated outside the court. They condemned the IDF and Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot, calling him a traitor and demanding his resignation. They also yelled slogans against Netanyahu. So far, the demonstration has not degenerated into the violent riot that occurred after he was convicted, when protesters blocked major nearby intersections and clashed with police.
Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Homeland) leader Naftali Bennet, and Sports and Culture Minister Miri Regev (Likud) have both called on either the Chief of Staff or the President Reuven (Ruby) Rivlin to pardon Azaria, saying “he should not have to spend one more day in prison”. He has been under arrest since the incident.
It is not clear whether the time he has been in jail awaiting trial will be deducted from the sentence.
In her statement summarizing the sentence and the court’s deliberations, Colonel Heller criticized Azaria for “never taking responsibility for what he had done”. She also criticized the defense for trying to move the goalposts in the middle of the game, referring to the several times Azaria changed his testimony during the trial, sometimes contradicting himself. She also mentioned the salient points that merited a relatively lenient sentence, such as his motivation to serve in a combat unit, and his exemplary record prior to the incident.