AP News, January 22nd, 2007
Asaf Ben-David, an Israeli Jew, is facing charges of conspiring to carry out a terror attack with a wanted Palestinian militant _ his brother.
The exceptional story of Ben-David, a 38-year-old father of four, begins in Tubas, a village in the West Bank, where he was born a Palestinian Muslim named Hussam Sawafta. In the early 1990s, he found work as a laborer in Israel, where he converted to Judaism, lived as an Orthodox Jew, married an Israeli woman and raised a family.
For years, Ben-David led a seemingly uneventful life and had little contact with his Palestinian relatives. Then last month, the Israeli army killed his brother, Salah Sawafta, an Islamic Jihad militant, in a West Bank gunbattle. Last week, Ben-David was indicted on charges of helping his brother plan a deadly attack against Israelis.
According to the charge sheet, Ben-David surreptitiously had contact with his brother for months and tried to help him obtain a large amount of nitric acid, used to prepare bombs.
"In the framework of his contacts with Salah, the accused conspired with Salah to assist the Islamic Jihad in its war against Israel," reads the indictment filed in Haifa District Court. Islamic Jihad has killed dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings.
On Sunday, the Sawafta family's large home in Tubas was adorned with a black Islamic Jihad flag. In the living room was a picture of Salah Sawafta, who died in a gunfight with Israeli troops on Dec. 20.
Mahmoud Sawafta, a cousin, said Ben-David left Tubas to work in Israel 15 years ago, and didn't return.
"He saw a different life, got married, and converted to Judaism," Mahmoud Sawafta said. Ben-David worked in restaurants and construction, and had only sporadic contact with his West Bank family, his cousin said.
Amit Rosines, a court-appointed lawyer, said Ben-David told him he was scorned as a traitor on the few occasions he went back to the village. "People in the village shouted at him that he raised Jewish soldiers," Rosines said.
Ben-David re-entered the life of the Sawafta family in earnest when his brother was killed, according to their father, Hafez Sawafta. He said he called his Jewish son the day his militant son was killed, and that Ben-David came to Tubas and stayed to mourn for three days.
When he returned to Israel, Ben-David decided to renounce Judaism and return to Islam, his father said. "He called me and said he had officially become Muslim again in a ceremony at a mosque, and said he wanted to give up his Israeli citizenship," Hafez Sawafta told The Associated Press.
Ben-David was arrested at his home in a Haifa suburb. The family learned of the arrest through Ben-David's wife Sima, Hafez Sawafta said. Shortly afterward, she cut off all contact. "Sima doesn't answer our calls anymore," Sawafta said.
Sima Ben-David was not available for comment. The family's home telephone was disconnected, and Rosines said she had not contacted him _ or, to his knowledge, her husband _ since the arrest.
His client has denied any involvement in terrorism, Rosines said.
Ben-David was in contact with his brother in the months before his death, but the two men only discussed family matters, the lawyer said. He said Ben-David tried to get his brother to turn himself in to Israeli authorities, and returned to Islam to protect himself when going to Tubas.
The brothers met in person only once, Rosines said. At one point, according to Rosines, Salah Sawafta gave Ben-David a letter asking him to help acquire nitric acid to make bombs.
"Ben-David says he put the letter aside and forgot about it, and never considered actually getting the material for his brother," the lawyer said.
Two months before his brother was killed, Ben-David was brought in for questioning by Israel's Shin Bet internal security agency, Rosines said. "The agents wanted to know why he was in touch with a wanted terrorist. He said, 'It's my brother, and you can't tell me not to speak with him,'" Rosines said.
George Shehade, an attorney retained by the Sawafta family, said it was possible that Salah Sawafta tried to exploit the fact that he had a brother in Israel. But Ben-David did not cooperate, Shehade said.
"You can't convict someone for talking to his brother, his parents, to the people he grew up with," Shehade said.
_____
AP writer Ali Daraghmeh contributed to this story from Tubas, West Bank.
