An Israeli military court on Tuesday sentenced a Kuwaiti-born bombmaker to 67 consecutive life terms in jail for killing dozens of Israelis and at least five Americans.
Abdullah Barghouti, 32, pleaded guilty to building the bombs that killed 66 people and wounded more than 500. The court handed Barghouti one life sentence for each person killed in the attacks and one more for wounding hundreds of others.
“The spate of murderous terror that the accused let loose was one of the most severe in the blood soaked history of this country,” the judges wrote.
Barghouti was convicted of making the bombs used in the bombing at the Hebrew University in which five Americans and four Israelis were killed, a suicide bombing at a branch of the Sbarro pizzeria that killed 15 people, the suicide bombing at the Moment Cafe that left 11 people dead and a triple bombing on Jerusalem’s Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall that killed 10 people.
In the sentencing, the judges wrote that they regretted that the death penalty was not an option. The only death penalty Israel has carried out was that of Holocaust planner Adolf Eichman in 1962.
According to the military, Barghouti was born in Kuwait to a Palestinian family. He traveled to the Palestinian territories in 1999, where he rose in the ranks of the violent Islamic Hamas group.
Abdullah Barghouti is not related to jailed Palestinian uprising leader Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences in an Israeli jail.
On Monday another military court sentenced Mohammed Abu Varda to 48 life sentences for planning three other suicide bombings.
