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Friday July 25, 1997

Parents of murdered girls protest killer's life sentence

NAOMI SEGAL
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

JERUSALEM -- The parents of seven Israeli schoolgirls who were murdered by a Jordanian soldier are protesting that he only received life in prison.

"I'm disappointed, especially in King Hussein," said Miri Meiri, the mother of Ya'ala Meiri, one of the victims.

Meiri said that during a condolence visit to the bereaved families, the Jordanian monarch had said he felt as if he lost one of his own daughters.

"Is this the sentence they would have given for the murder of a princess?" Meiri asked Sunday at a news conference called by the municipality of Beit Shemesh, where most of the girls lived.

A Jordanian military court sentenced Cpl. Ahmed Dakamsheh to life in prison for killing the schoolgirls at the Naharayim border enclave in March.

The five-member tribunal said they were reluctant to sentence him to death because they did not believe his actions were premeditated.

The judges stated that Dakamsheh, 26, was under intense mental stress, due in part to "exhaustion from being on guard duty for 22 hours straight" and from "sexual frustration due to his wife's pregnancy."

Meiri said Dakamsheh was "totally sane" at the time of the attack.

"He even admitted that he intended to murder children from another bus, but that they looked too young," she said. "It is impossible to turn him into some unstable person as well as a national hero."

Beit Shemesh Mayor Danny Vaknin said he would appeal to King Hussein and to the international community about the sentence.

Dakamsheh was also sentenced to 10 years of hard labor for wounding five other schoolgirls, three years of prison for disobeying army orders, and one year for threatening to use a weapon against his fellow soldiers.

He was demoted to the rank of private and discharged from the military.

In Amman, Jordanian university students demonstrated Sunday in support of the convicted soldier and against their country's peace treaty with Israel.

"Don't fear prison, Ahmed our hero," protesters chanted. "Hold your head up high. We don't want to see your eyes weeping."

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