The military court rejected the petition of Elior Azariah to postpone the execution of the punishment until the decision of the Chief of the General Staff Gadi Aizenkot to mitigate the punishment, as the convict had previously asked.
Thus, tomorrow, September 9th, Azaria will have to arrive at military prison number 4 and begin serving his term.
Last week, the military court upheld the sentence of an 18-month prison sentence for the killing of a wounded terrorist in Hebron.
Without waiting for the end of the one-month period set aside by law to appeal to the Supreme Court, Azaria sent a letter to the Chief of the General Staff asking him to mitigate the punishment, namely, to replace the prison term with public works.
Azaria's lawyer Yoram Sheftel said today in court that the request to mitigate the sentence means that the defendant is not going to appeal to the Supreme Court, and therefore there is no need to wait a month. Sheftel asked for a 21-day delay in the execution of the verdict, since during this time Aizenkot will decide how to deal with Elor.
The court rejected this argument, ruling that there was no justification for the postponement.
On Wednesday at 10:00, all Israeli media will gather near the military prison to show how the culprit of the most resonant criminal case of recent years enters it.
Observers believe that Gadi Eisenkot will want to moderate the sentence, although Azaria did not express unequivocal regret about what he did. In a letter to the chief of the General Staff, he wrote that he would not shoot a terrorist if he knew that there was no bomb on him, as he allegedly feared at the time.