Jewish settler faces terror charges

A Jewish settler has been charged by an Israeli court with belonging to a “terrorist network” suspected of masterminding anti-Palestinian attacks.

Shahar Dvir Zelinger is charged with belonging to a terrorist group

At his Jerusalem trial, the prosecution accused Shahar Dvir Zelinger of belonging to a “terror cell” and storing weapons stolen from the Israeli army, but did not charge him with direct involvement in attacks.

From an unrelated find, Israeli police Friday displayed to the media a large arms stock allegedly stashed by members of an unidentified terror network near the illegal Jewish settlement of Adi Ad in the northern West Bank.

Ballistic tests proved that the weapons were used in seven attacks that killed eight Palestinians in the West Bank and wounded dozens, Israeli state television reported, quoting sources close to the investigation.

The cache included light machine-guns, three anti-tank rockets, automatic rifles and a large quantity of ammunition and grenades.

Convictions

Three other Israeli settlers, arrested last year while planting a bomb next to a Palestinian school in east Jerusalem, were convicted on Wednesday of attempted homicide.

The residents of the Bat Ayin settlement near the southern West Bank town of Bethlehem, had tried to park an explosives-laden pick-up truck between a hospital and a girls’ school in the Attur neighbourhood of east Jerusalem in April 2002.

Nine other settlers suspected of belonging to an anti-Arab “terrorist network” were released earlier this month for lack of evidence, with some of them placed under house arrest.

At least nine Palestinians have been gunned down by armed settler groups since November 2001 in response to anti-Israeli attacks. 

Source: AFP