Jew lynch participant in Tamra acquitted

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Ahmed Marih, a young man from Tamra who was charged with terrorist crimes and lynching a Jew, was acquitted of all charges.

He was accused of sabotage under aggravating circumstances; deliberate vandalism motivated by racism; riots; and attempted aggravated assault on a police officer. Mustafa Awad, another young man, was convicted of crimes.

The incident took place on May 12, 2021, on Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan. Around midnight, Shir Alkalay, aged 49, married and father of four, ran into the city. He commuted from work as a private gardener to his home in nearby Mitzpe Aviv by car. Because of the riots, the roads to the isolated settlement where he lives were blocked, and he took a detour through Tamra. When he had to stop the car in a traffic jam that he got into, one of the people on the spot approached him and asked if he was an Arab, and when he answered that he was a Jew, the man started shouting “Jew, Jew.” Then they gathered around his car, threw stones at him at close range and kicked and punched the car.

Some of the rioters pulled out Alcalai's working tools: rakes, wooden sticks, scissors, a chainsaw and an aluminum rod – and beat the car with them, smashed the windows, stabbed through the broken windows and through the door of the car, which they managed to open. Again and again they tried to drag him out of the car to beat him, and he had to protect his head with his hands.

“There were moments when I didn't know where it was going … it didn't end, it just didn't end,” Alcalai told the court. He described that at one point he screamed like a “killed animal.” Alcalai was saved by the El-Zahrawi resuscitation team, called to the scene by the residents of Tamr, who pushed back the attackers, who continued to beat the car during the evacuation, and then set it on fire. The resuscitation car, which was Dr. Muhammad Awad from Tamra, evacuated the man to the Rambam hospital. in Haifa with serious injuries, including fractures of the skull and ribs, fractures, cuts, hemorrhages, scratches, bruised teeth and other injuries.

One month after the incident, after the investigation by the police and Shin Bet, the District Attorney's Office Haifa filed charges against six residents of Tamra. Four of them confessed to what was attributed to them during the investigation, and were sentenced to five years in prison, one of them, and seven years in prison.

The second indictment was against Mustafa Awad and Ahmed Marih, 19-year-old residents of Tamra with no criminal record, who stated that they had alibis and pleaded not guilty to the charges. After 19 sittings, Judge Daniel Fish delivered a guilty verdict on Awad today. “His guilt was proven beyond reasonable doubt during the process,” he said, dismissing all the arguments of defense lawyer Mahmoud Shami. Awad was immediately arrested and imprisoned.

Ahmed Merich, who claimed from the day of the incident that he was at his car wash from 08:00 on the day of the incident until 07:00 the next day, was acquitted. One of the witnesses supporting his version testified in his favor even before the arraignment, and two of the four convicted “surrendered” him during the investigation. Judge Daniel Fish agreed with lawyer Ibrahim Kanaen, defender of Ahmed Merich, and acquitted him, “because of the reasonable doubt that he was involved in the events.”

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