Yaakov Teitel

Teitel was born and raised in Florida and became an Israeli citizen in 2000.[5] He was described in November 2009 as 37 years old.[5] An immigrant from the United States and a father of four, he lived in Shvut Rachel, also rendered Shevut Rachel, a settlement between Ramallah and Nablus in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria.[5][6]

In 1997, Teitel murdered Palestinian taxi driver Samir Akram Balbisi and Palestinian shepherd Issa Jabrin.[3] He entered Balbisi’s taxi, asked him to stop, and shot him at close range.[3] Approximately three months later, he encountered Jabrin near Sussia and shot him twice in the chest at close range.[3] The sentencing account established that he targeted the men because they were Arab and that neither posed an observed threat to him.[3]

In March 2008, Teitel placed an explosive device inside a Purim gift basket intended for the father of teenager Amiel, or Ami, Ortiz in Ariel.[1][3] Teitel believed the father was a leader of a Messianic Jewish group.[3] A housekeeper brought the basket into the home, and the explosion seriously injured the 15-year-old Ortiz.[1][3] Teitel confessed to targeting the family because of its religious beliefs and was subsequently convicted of attempting to murder Ortiz.[3][7]

In September 2008, Teitel placed a bomb concealed in a flowerpot near the home of Hebrew University historian Ze’ev Sternhell.[3] The explosion injured Sternhell in the legs; the injuries were described as light.[2][3] Sternhell was a Holocaust survivor from Poland and an opponent of Israel’s presence in the West Bank.[5] Teitel was convicted of the attack as part of the case that also established his responsibility for the Ortiz bombing and the two murders.[1][2]

Teitel also distributed pamphlets calling for the killing of members of the gay and lesbian community and offering NIS 20,000 to anyone who caused the death of a person described in the pamphlets as “Sodom and Gomorrah.”[3] The pamphlets included instructions for making a Molotov cocktail.[3] These publications formed the basis of his conviction for incitement to violence and terror.[3]

Investigators identified Teitel as the sole suspect in Balbisi’s murder the day after the killing, but the investigation stalled in 2000 after he passed an Israel Security Agency, or Shin Bet, polygraph examination.[8] He was arrested at Ben-Gurion Airport in May 2000, questioned about the 1997 killings, and released without charges for lack of evidence.[9][10] Investigative documents concerning the shepherd’s killing included information about a rental car, a false alibi, and Teitel’s departure from Israel; nevertheless, a police summary recommended shelving the case because investigators lacked evidence leading to the suspect.[9]

After the 2000 interrogation, the Shin Bet held several meetings with Teitel in an effort to obtain information about extreme-right-wing elements.[10] The agency said the contacts produced nothing and were discontinued.[10]

A December 2008 investigative assessment linked ten incidents from 2006–2008 to a common perpetrator.[11] These included an explosive charge at a police station in Eli, devices at the Beit Jamal monastery and in Jerusalem’s Ramot neighborhood, the Ortiz gift-basket bombing, the Sternhell bombing, and distributions of anti-gay pamphlets and other writings.[11] The assessment examined writings advocating a “Judea state” and containing instructions for making incendiary and explosive devices.[11] Investigators ultimately assessed that Teitel acted alone rather than within the multi-cell organization proposed in an investigative profile.[11]

Police and the Shin Bet arrested Teitel in Jerusalem on October 7, 2009.[6] His arrest followed the posting of anti-homosexual flyers and signs praising the August 2009 shooting at a Tel Aviv LGBT organization.[7][8] Police did not charge him with the killings at that organization.[8] He remained in custody while investigators examined additional offenses.[8]

Police found flyers near Sternhell’s home after the September 2008 attack calling for a new state in the West Bank governed by Jewish religious law.[8] Issued in the name of the “Army of the State Liberators,” they offered NIS 1.1 million to anyone who killed a member of Peace Now.[8] These flyers were distinct in their stated target and reward from the anti-gay pamphlets underlying Teitel’s later incitement conviction.[3][8]

The original indictment reported in 2009 contained 14 offenses, including two premeditated murders, three attempted murders, weapons offenses, and incitement.[12] It alleged that Teitel smuggled a gun into Israel inside a disassembled video player, planted explosive devices, and attempted to poison residents of a village near Eli using bottles containing ethylene glycol.[12] These were allegations in the original indictment, which was later replaced by an amended indictment containing ten offenses.[2][12]

Other arrest-era allegations included a bombing near a monastery that wounded a Palestinian tractor driver and the stabbing of an Arab Israeli man.[5] Teitel reportedly explained the monastery attack by saying he had heard that monks were enticing Jewish children with candy, while the stabbing allegation concerned a man whom he believed was making sexual advances toward him.[5] Police also arrested his neighbor Yossi Spinoza in connection with the accusations.[5]

The proceedings included several psychiatric assessments and rulings on Teitel’s fitness for trial.[1][13] An initial assessment in 2010 found him unfit, while later assessments found him able to face prosecution.[13] The Jerusalem District Court ruled on August 30, 2010, that he was fit to stand trial, and a further determination of fitness followed in 2012 after contradictory psychiatric evaluations.[1][14]

In May 2012, after three years of denials, Teitel admitted the facts of an amended indictment.[2][3] Because he refused to recognize the court’s authority, his attorneys signed and filed the admission on his behalf.[2] The amended indictment contained ten offenses, compared with 14 in the original indictment, including two murders and two attempted murders.[2][12] The prosecution agreed to remove charges concerning attempted attacks that authorities had foiled, along with general wording describing hatred of people with different views or lifestyles as his motive.[2][13]

On January 16, 2013, the Jerusalem District Court convicted Teitel of murder, attempted murder, and additional offenses.[2] The offenses included the two 1997 murders, the attacks on Ortiz and Sternhell, and incitement to violence and terror.[2] The court found him criminally responsible, accepting an expert assessment that episodes of insanity occurred after the offenses, during his imprisonment, rather than when he committed the crimes.[13]

On April 9, 2013, the Jerusalem District Court sentenced Teitel to two life sentences plus an additional 30 years in prison for the two murders, two attempted murders, assault, and other offenses.[1] It ordered him to pay NIS 180,000 to each murdered man’s family and NIS 150,000 to each of the two attempted-murder victims.[1]

The judges rejected a request to reduce the punishment because of his mental state, finding no causal connection between his mental condition and his actions.[15] The Supreme Court subsequently rejected his appeal against the conclusions concerning his mental responsibility and the sentence, leaving those decisions in place.[4]

The arrest prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to call for Israel to fight a “marginal minority” of extreme nationalists whom he said threatened Israeli democracy.[5] Israeli officials praised the security services’ arrest and investigation of Teitel.[7] The security services assessed that he had acted alone rather than as part of a larger settler terrorist organization.[7]

The case brought together the prosecution of murders of Palestinians, attacks on a Messianic Jewish family and an Israeli historian, and incitement against gay people in a single criminal proceeding.[2][3] Its legal outcome included two life terms, an additional prison term, and compensation orders for the murder victims’ families and the people he attempted to murder.[1]

The handling of the investigations drew questions in Israeli media about whether the security services had sufficient motivation and resources to investigate settler violence.[7] Documents released in December 2009 showed that the Balbisi investigation had stalled after Teitel passed a polygraph despite having been identified as the sole suspect shortly after the murder.[8]

Teitel’s mental responsibility was a substantial legal dispute.[4] On appeal, he argued that delusions and an appearance by an angel ordering him to act had deprived him of judgment.[4] The Supreme Court’s three-judge panel concluded that he had not demonstrated that mental illness substantially deprived him of the ability to understand his actions or their wrongfulness, or to refrain from committing them.[4] It also held that his personality disorder did not, by itself, require application of the insanity defense.[4]