Nasar Aslan, 31, has appealed his one-year prison sentence to the Haifa District Court and is asking for community service instead of jail. He was convicted of obstructing the investigation in the deadly hit-and-run case involving his brother, suspended lawyer Raafe Aslan, after a crash on Route 899 near Moshav Ya'ara that killed 20-year-old Capt. Amit Itach from Kibbutz Adamit.
According to the conviction, Aslan went to the Galilee Medical Center and then to police shortly after the crash and falsely claimed he had been driving the car involved. In reality, prosecutors said, the car belonged to Raafe Aslan, who struck the vehicle carrying Itach and her friends. Itach was mortally wounded and later died at the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya.
The same crash seriously injured two of her friends, Yam Radker and Shahar Kachila. Radker suffered abdominal injuries and needed surgery, while Kachila was critically hurt, with shattered fractures and multiple-system injuries, and doctors amputated his left leg. Raafe Aslan fled after the accident, hid in Jenin, and surrendered about a month later. He was convicted of hit-and-run and sentenced to six years in prison by the Haifa District Court.
Lawyers Shlomi Sharon and Tami Ullman argue that Haifa Magistrate Court Judge Maria Pikus Bogdanov was too harsh when she imposed 12 months in prison, six months suspended, and a 7,000-shekel fine. They say the state had sought 17 to 24 months in prison, but the court should have accepted probation services' rehabilitation-focused recommendation and the standard penalty should not exceed community service. The appeal says Aslan is a law-abiding man with no criminal record, married and father of two, who admitted the charges, expressed remorse, and showed empathy for the victims.
