Vermont man convicted of attempted murder of three Palestinian students

A jury has convicted a Vermont man of attempted murder in the shootings of three Palestinian college students who were walking near his home, rejecting an insanity defense rooted in his claims that he was acting on orders from the CIA and Mossad.Jason Eaton, 51, faces up to life in prison over the November 2023 attack near the Vermont" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="174921" data-entity-type="organization">University of Vermont campus in Burlington, which left Hisham Awartani paralyzed from the waist down and wounded his friends, Tahseen Aliahmad and Kinnan Abdalhamid.The jury deliberated for several hours before reaching its verdict after a week-long trial that saw testimony from the three men and psychiatric experts called by the defense and prosecution.Eaton was ordered to be held in jail pending sentencing, which has yet to be scheduled. He stared ahead blankly as the verdict was read. Awartani and Aliahmad, sitting in the front row of the courtroom gallery, smiled and hugged people around them.“Justice has been rendered for Hisham, Kinnan and Tahseen. After three years of sorrow, loss, and struggle, our families finally feel relief,” the families of the three men said in a joint statement. “The verdict cannot undo what happened or erase the trauma our families still carry. But it affirms something fundamental: Jason Eaton is responsible for what he did.”Eaton had pleaded not guilty but did not dispute that he was the shooter. His lawyers argued that he should be found not guilty by reason of insanity, pointing to his claims that the United States and Israeli intelligence agencies transmitted orders to shoot the men to him via FM radio and that God was commanding him to protect his Jewish neighbors.Had he been found not guilty by reason of insanity, he could have been ordered to undergo mental health treatment.In their statement, the families said Eaton had repeatedly used “hateful” words to describe their sons during the trial. “They were not the words of a man confused about who he shot, or why. They are the words of a man who saw three young men celebrating their friendship and wearing what made them feel closer to their far away families and home – and decided to kill them because of his own prejudices. We do not need a jury to tell us why our sons were targeted. We heard it, in his own words. This was a hate crime. We have said so from the beginning.”From left: Tahseen Aliahmad, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Hisham Awatani. Photograph: Rich Price/APThanking their communities in Burlington and Vermont for their support and solidarity, the families added: “That solidarity has mattered even more with each passing year, because our sons’ recovery unfolded alongside the genocide and destruction of Gaza and the escalating ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. While our children fought to heal from being shot in Burlington, they watched Palestinian children lose their lives, their homes, their land, their families. We are grateful our sons’ suffering commanded attention and support. We grieve that so much Palestinian suffering never does.“Hisham, Kinnan and Tahseen have spent three years rebuilding their bodies and their lives after a hateful act almost killed them. We are profoundly relieved. And we continue to work toward a world where hateful violence against Palestinians is called out for what it is – and stopped.”The shooting, a few days after Thanksgiving, shook Burlington and reverberated in the occupied West Bank, where the three men grew up and became friends as schoolmates in Ramallah before moving to the US for college.The shooting, which occurred weeks after the onset of Israel’s military assault on Gaza – widely condemned as a genocide – triggered calls for a hate crime investigation.But no hate crime charges were filed as questions persisted about whether anti-Palestinian animus, an altered mental state or something else had compelled Eaton to open fire on Awartani, Aliahmad and Abdalhamid, who were all 20 at the time.Eaton’s lawyers argued he was suffering from a delusional, psychotic disorder after losing his job at a credit union two weeks before the shooting.Awartani, Aliahmad and Abdalhamid, all of whom are now 23, told jurors of their holiday weekend visit to Awartani’s grandmother’s house, a trip to a bowling alley to celebrate his twin cousins’ birthday, and the walk they took near the Vermont" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="174921" data-entity-type="organization">University of Vermont campus after dusk that ended in the shooting.Awartani, who was studying at Brown University in Providence at the time, said they were smoking cigarettes and speaking a mix of English and Arabic. Two of them said they were wearing traditional Palestinian scarves known as keffiyehs. Awartani said he noticed Eaton standing on a porch as they approached the apartment house where he lived.Within seconds, Awartani said, Eaton was off the porch and walking towards them. His face was expressionless and he did not say anything. As Eaton got to about five to 10 feet away, “he pulled out a handgun and started shooting at us,” said Awartani, who was paralyzed from the waist down in the attack and now uses a wheelchair.The Associated Press contributed reporting.