Posted on 11/13/2003 11:09:58 AM PST by yonif
Tel Aviv District Court on Thursday convicted Mahmud Na'di, the taxi driver who drove the suicide bomber to the Dolphinarium, of being an accomplice to murder.
Na'di, a 31-year-old Israeli-Arab from Kalkilya, was arrested shortly after the June 1, 2001 attack by a Hamas terrorist which killed 21 people, most of them teenagers from the former Soviet Union, and wounded scores of others.
According to the verdict Na'di chose to ignore the various warning signs of his passenger's intentions, such as his phone conversations and bulging abdomen. He will be sentenced at a later date.
At a June, 2001 remand hearing Na'di said, 'I didn't know anything. If I had known I would not have gotten into this situation and if I had known I would not be embarrassed to say so."
"He [the suicide bomber] didn't say to get away from the area quickly," he said in response to one of the allegations.
Na'di said he had been asked by friends to pick the man up from a junction near Kalkilya. 'They told me to pick him up and take him to Tel Aviv, because he had to work there,' he said, noting that the pick-up point had been on the Israeli side of the Green Line.
'He asked me to drop him at the Tel Aviv promenade. When I passed there were thousands of people and he didn't get off. I never thought he would carry out an attack.
'I was with my seven-year-old daughter in the car. Do you think I would take my daughter with me with somebody who could blow himself up? If there had been an accident, it could have exploded in the car,' he said. Na'di added he had been told by his friends about the pick-up only on the same night.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.