Terrorists Get Stiff Jail Terms

Terrorists caught in Israel recently have received prison terms from 8 years to life imprisonment. Two brothers, Kemal and Basem Dardouk, members of a terrorist gang in Samaria, were sentenced to life imprisonment for killing an Israeli soldier shortly after the Yom Kippur War. Nine other members of the group, headed by Kemal Dardouk, received prison terms of eight to 50 years.

The soldier, Ali Luppo, a paratrooper in his 20s, was murdered after he accepted a lift from a pickup truck as he was trying to go home from Samaria. The murder weapons, an ax and an iron rod, were found in the home of the Dardouk brothers.

An Arab terrorist who participated in the attack on the El Al office in Istanbul in 1970 was sentenced to 12 years in prison after he was captured in Jerusalem when he came there as a summer visitor to see his relatives.

The terrorist, Ali el-Shami, 27, of East Jerusalem, was sentenced to four years for being a member of a terrorist group and collecting information with the intention of violating Israel’s security. He received an additional eight years for participating in the Istanbul attack. Under a recently adopted law, Israeli courts can try terrorists for acts of terror committed outside Israel.

According to authorities, Shami left East Jerusalem for Jordan in 1968 and joined a terrorist group known as “The Popular Struggle Front,” of which he was a member until 1971. In 1970 he and two others were sent to Istanbul where they placed a bomb which exploded near the El Al office, shattering the windows but not injuring anyone. Shami then returned to Jordan and apparently thought that enough time had elapsed to make it safe for him to visit his relatives in Jerusalem last month. There was no disclosure as to how he was recognized and identified. His trial was held in June but details were not released until a few days ago.