20-year old terrorist Nur a-Din Hashiya, who murdered IDF soldier Almog Shiloni outside a Tel Aviv train station in November 2014, was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday.
In an unprecedented harsh ruling, the district court determined that Hashiya will spend at least 40 years in prison and could not be paroled before that. Moreover, the parole board will not be able to even discuss mitigating his sentence until 15 years have passed, and he will be excluded in any future prisoner swap deal.
Hashiya, who was convicted in May 2016, was ordered to pay Shiloni's family NIS 258,000 in compensation.
According to the indictment, Hashiya illegally entered Israel on November 9, 2014, seeking to stab a soldier and become a martyr. He bought a knife at the Jaffa flea market and made his way to the Hagana Train Station, where he noticed Shiloni in uniform and carrying an M-16 rifle.
The terrorist stabbed Shiloni in an effort to snatch his rifle, but Shiloni fought him. A passerby chased the terrorist away and Hashiya was later captured in a nearby building by Border Policemen. Shiloni succumbed to his critical wounds the next day.
One of the judges credited Almog Shiloni fighting back with preventing a much greater disaster. He said, “Shiloni's murder was traumatic for the entire nation. In my view, the murder was committed under exceptionally grave circumstances.”
While the district court gave the terrorist an unusually harsh sentence, the High Court of Justice cancelled the demolition order for the terrorist's home, determining that the time that has passed from the attack and until the order was issued—11 months later—was too long and would not create deterrence.
Yosef Shiloni, Almog's father, thanked the court for their sensitivity and their unanimous decision to put the terrorist behind bars for a lengthy sentence. He added, “We felt Almog was with us all the way. As a family, we chose life, we founded a home for lone soldiers in his memory.”