Jason Eaton convicted of attempted murder in Vermont shooting of three Palestinian students
A Vermont jury rejected an insanity defence and found Jason Eaton guilty of attempting to murder three Palestinian-descent students in November 2023. Eaton now faces a possible life sentence.
Vermont jury convicts Eaton over shooting of three Palestinian-descent students
A US jury has found Jason Eaton, 51, guilty of attempted murder for shooting three students of Palestinian descent in Vermont in November 2023, bbc.com reports. The jury rejected his insanity defence after a week-long trial.
Eaton never disputed that he was the shooter but pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. He now awaits sentencing and could face life in prison.
The attack left Hisham Awartani paralysed from the waist down. The two other victims, Tahseen Aliahmad and Kinnan Abdalhamid, sustained gunshot wounds but survived.
Claimed CIA and Mossad instructions
Defence attorneys argued that Eaton's mental health had deteriorated sharply after he lost his job at a credit union weeks before the incident. His lawyers said he came to believe the CIA was communicating with him through a local radio broadcast and directing him to shoot someone.
"He believed he'd been instructed to do this by a government agency or God," defence attorney Joshua O'Hara said.
The prosecution and defence both called psychiatrists to testify during the week-long trial, which also included testimony from all three victims, now aged 23.
According to the Associated Press, Eaton stared blankly as the verdict was read. Awartani, who attended the proceedings in a wheelchair, and Aliahmad smiled and embraced those around them.
Thanksgiving visit turned violent
The shooting took place as the three men were walking near Eaton's home. They were speaking a mix of Arabic and English and wearing keffiyehs, the traditional Palestinian scarves, according to reports.
The three had previously attended school together in Ramallah and were visiting Awartani's grandmother in Burlington for Thanksgiving. Abdalhamid was enrolled at Haverford College; Awartani studied at Brown University in Rhode Island; and Aliahmad was a student at Trinity College in Connecticut.
The attack occurred the month after the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war, during a period marked by a reported rise in Islamophobia and antisemitism across the United States.
Source: Google News IE — Crime (en)