Egyptian Who Killed 4 Israelis Given 12 Years

A military court on Saturday convicted a police conscript of murdering four Israelis and sentenced him to 12 years in prison at hard labor.

The court said it decided against a harsher sentence because the defendant, Ayman Mohammed Hassan, 23, suffered from diminished mental capacity.

Hassan was convicted of killing three Israeli soldiers and a civilian and wounding 26 in a cross-border shooting rampage Nov. 25. He was the second Egyptian border guard convicted of shooting Israelis to death since the two countries signed a peace treaty in 1979.

Presiding Judge Mohammed Wagdi Leithy said doctors who examined Hassan said brain deficiency “reduced his responsibility but did not negate it altogether.”

Relatives appeared overjoyed at what they apparently considered to be a light sentence. Under Egypt’s penal code, Hassan could have been hanged.

Israeli officials said a gunman wearing an Egyptian uniform crept just over the border into Israel to a point near a Negev Desert highway. He ambushed a bus and three military vehicles, raked them with gunfire from an automatic weapon, then dashed back into Egypt, they said.