ISRAEL MATZAV: LA Times loves terrorists

The Los Angeles Times does an unbelievably sympathetic portrayal of two brutal murderers, the murderers of five members of the Fogel family of Itamar. The blog post (that's what it is) was written by one Maher Abukhater of "Ramallah, West Bank." This guy makes every excuse you can possibly make for two people who, among other things, slit the throat of a three-month old baby.

“They said they have done it and they are not going to plead innocent or claim they made their confession under duress,” their attorney, Faris Abu Hasan, said. “I do not know what kind of state of mind they were in when they confessed.”

Hasan said he thought they had given up on life and didn’t believe they would make it alive into the heavily fortified settlement of Itamar, let alone survive getting back out.

The two Palestinians, residents of Awarta, cooperated fully with their interrogators and gave them full and explicit details of how they had accomplished the killings.

...

Hasan, who only has met them once since the army announced their arrest, believes the Awads are resigned to their fate. He says once the case comes to court, which may be soon, the pair will plead guilty.

Once the prosecutor presents the list of charges to the military court, which will convene May 27 in a northern West Bank military base, the judge will set a date for the trial. Hasan said it will likely take just one court session for the judge to pass sentence because the Awads will admit committing the killings and testify that they were not coerced into making their confessions.

An Israeli military judge Tuesday gave the army prosecutor 10 days to present the charge list against the boys.

“I do not think I will have a case in court,” Hasan said. “It seems that it is already decided.”

Yeah, confessions with forensic evidence tend to shorten trials, don't they? But you can bet this trial will still take a lot longer than any trial in the 'Palestinian Authority.' And unfortunately, since we haven't administered the death penalty since Adolph Eichmann 50 years ago, these two monsters will likely sit in jail getting an education until they are sprung in a 'prisoner exchange' - maybe even for Gilad Shalit.