"Hamas court convicts 4 in Italian activist death" Associated Press, September 18, 2012
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — A Hamas court convicted four men on Monday of last year’s kidnapping and killing of a pro-Palestinian Italian activist in Gaza, sentencing two of the defendants to 35 years in prison, a judicial official said.
Vittorio Arrigoni was kidnapped and strangled in March 2011 by hard-line Islamic extremists. The body of the 36-year-old, who had been living in Gaza since 2008, was found a day after he was kidnapped and after a video showing him beaten and blindfolded surfaced online.
Related: Kidnapping Killing in Gaza Ends in Suicide
The killing was the first such case in Gaza since the Islamic militant group Hamas seized the coastal territory in 2007.
Except they didn't seize power, they won an election.
Two of the defendants — 28-year-old Mahmoud al-Salfiti and 27-year-old Tamer al-Hasasna — were convicted of murder and kidnapping, and each sentenced to 35 years in prison with hard labor, the judicial official said on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to the media. They got 25 years as the maximum sentence for murder under Gaza law and another 10 years for kidnapping.
A third man, Khader Jram, 24, was sentenced to 10 years for taking part in the kidnapping. Another man, Amer Abu Ghouleh, 23, was given a year’s sentence for sheltering fugitives, the official said.
Lawyers from the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, which represented the activist’s family, confirmed the sentences.
