Israeli Judge: All Jews Who Defend Themselves will be Prosecuted to the Fullest Extent of the Law.

In one of its most reprehensible rulings ever, the Israeli "Just"ice system has ruled that Daniel Pinner is guilty. Ruling was made on unreliable eyewitness testimony, some of which claimed Daniel was a foot taller, wore a hat, etc, etc.

Daniel Pinner Found Guilty
17:00 Jan 29, '06 / 29 Tevet 5766
By Hillel Fendel


Daniel Pinner, who shot in the air when attacked by a rock-throwing Arab mob, was found guilty by the Be'er Sheva District Court of causing willful and malicious injury. He faces a 3-year sentence.



Pinner, who made Aliyah from England and lives in Kfar Tapuach, has been in prison for over seven months. He was arrested on June 22 for allegedly firing at and injuring an Arab on the Gush Katif beach. Pinner has maintained that he shot in the air in self-defense when a mob of some 50 Arabs threw rocks at him; Arab witnesses and participants admitted in court that they were throwing rocks.

Pinner, 38, an unmarried teacher and licensed electrician, was in Gush Katif at the time to volunteer his services in the refurbishing of the Palm Beach Hotel for new families. Four days after the incident, he was arrested at home, with the police first claiming that he had shot an Arab in the chest, and then later in the leg. Even after months in jail, Pinner did not lose his sense of humor, describing his court hearings in the following manner:

"...It was Wednesday 28 September, and I was up for the second hearing of my trial... Justice was proceeding at its usual sedate, calm pace, undisturbed by such concepts as presumption of innocence, factual evidence, or the right to a speedy trial. The hearing itself was comparatively brief - about an hour or so, in which two police officers in charge of the interrogation testified that: ...
• yes, they found a spent cartridge from my Uzi;
• no, they had not bothered to check the range or angle of fire to see if that could possibly have been the bullet which allegedly hit Nasser Wafi;
• no, they had not been able to run an identity parade to ask the Arab eye-witnesses if I was the shooter;
• no, they could not explain why it was impossible to do an identity parade;
• no, they could not explain why the police did not think of photographing me in order to run a photographic identity parade."

Atty. Baruch Ben-Yosef expressed disgust at the ruling, saying it "simply ignored all of our legal claims, such as the expert who said that it was impossible to ascertain whether the wound was even caused by a bullet... The judge believed the Arab witnesses, despite the discrepancies in their testimony."

The ruling was handed down Sunday morning by Justice Rachel Barkai of the Be'er Sheva District Court.

Ben-Yosef believes there are strong grounds to appeal to the Supreme Court, and Pinner is likely to do so. In the meanwhile, however, sentencing hearings are currently scheduled for March 8. A probation report must also be prepared for this purpose. He faces a possible three-year prison sentence.