JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli-American man was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Israel on Thursday for making about 2,000 hoax bomb threats that forced evacuations of U.S. Jewish community centers and planes to make emergency landings.

The threats, by phone and email were made in 2016 and 2017, and raised concern at the time in the United States that anti-Semitism was on the rise.

Psychiatrists found that the defendant, now 20 but a minor when some of the crimes were committed, was on the autism spectrum and had paranoid delusions. But the Tel Aviv District Court that convicted him in June said he was fit to stand trial after it weighed medical opinions.

In passing sentence, the court said the defendant offered on the “dark web” - part of the Internet accessible only through special software - to make bomb and shooting threats for money, earning about $240,000 worth of the digital currency Bitcoin.

The man, who has not been named in the proceedings in Israel due his status as a minor when the offences took place, has been identified as Michael Kadar in separate indictments in the United States for alleged hate crimes.

The court in Tel Aviv had convicted Kadar of counts that included extortion, disseminating hoaxes in order to spread panic, money laundering and computer hacking over bomb and shooting threats against community centers, schools, shopping malls, police stations, airlines and airports in North America, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Norway and Denmark.

“As a result of 142 telephone calls to airports and airlines, in which he said bombs had been planted in passenger planes or they would come under attack, aircraft were forced to make emergency landings and fighter planes were scrambled,” the court said.

The U.S. Justice Department has said that in early 2017, Kadar made bomb threats against the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish campaign group based in New York and the Israeli embassy in Washington, as well as threatening calls about bomb and gun attacks against Jewish community centers in Florida.

Kadar, who was arrested in Israel in March 2017, is Jewish.

His parents have said he has a brain tumor that causes autism and other mental problems, making him unable to understand the nature of his actions.

“True, the accused is recognized as autistic but he is highly intelligent and understands his actions full well,” the court said, adding that it would have sent him to jail for 17 years had he not had mental health issues.

The court also said Kadar refuses to disclose the password to his Bitcoin digital wallet and its value has since risen to more than $1 million.</s>An American-Israeli man was sentenced to 10 years prison by a Tel Aviv court on Thursday after being convicted of making thousands of bomb threats against Jewish centers and other venues in the US and elsewhere.

Michael Ron David Kadar, 20, wasn't named in the Israeli court due to his offenses occurring when he was under 18, but he has been previously identified in an indictment in the US.



He was arrested in March 2017 on suspicion of calling in threats to flights, schools, and public and religious buildings in the US, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.

He used sophisticated online tools to phone in threats, often by disguising his voice as a woman's. He also advertised his services for payment on the dark web, receiving tens of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin.

Kadar was suspected of criminal misdeeds dating as far back as 2015, when a call was made to New York City's JFK airport, prompting the grounding of Delta flights due to false threats that there were explosives around and inside the airport.

By the time of his arrest in March last year, BuzzFeed News tallied that more than 100 threats had been made to Jewish community centers and schools around the US since the start of 2017.

“One can easily imagine the terror, the fear and the horror that gripped the airplane passengers who were forced to make an emergency landing, some of whom were injured while evacuating the plane,” Judge Zvi Gurfinkel wrote in a verdict obtained by the New York Times, “and the terrified panic caused when there was a need to evacuate pupils from schools because of fake bomb threats.”



Kadar's parents argued he was not legally competent because of a brain tumor that caused autism, the BBC reported, but the judge still declared Kadar "has a high IQ and understands his deeds very well".

In the US, Kadar is accused of making bomb threats and active shooter threats to numerous Jewish Community Centers throughout Florida in early 2017. Nothing was detonated and no one was hurt in connection with any of the threats.

According to the US criminal complaint, between Jan. 4 and Mar. 7 2017, Kadar made 245 threatening calls to organizations around the US that targeted JCCs, other historical Jewish institutions, and offices of a prominent Jewish group, the Anti-Defamation League.

It was not immediately clear if he will be extradited to the US to face trial once his Israeli prison sentence ends.</s>(JTA) — A 20-year-old American-Israeli man convicted of making hundreds of bomb threats to Jewish community centers and Jewish schools in the United States and five other countries, as well as to airlines, was sentenced to ten years in prison in Israel.

The sentence for Michael Kadar, who holds dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship and whose name is barred from publication in Israel, was delivered on Thursday in Tel Aviv District Court. Kadar was convicted on several counts including extortion, conspiracy to commit a crime, money laundering and assaulting a police officer

The sentence was delivered despite testimony by defense psychologists that he is autistic and incompetent.

Judge Tzvi Gurfinkel said that despite his medical conditions, Kadar was responsible for his actions and understood the difference between right and wrong. The judge noted that had Kadar not been autistic he would have sentenced him to 17 years.

Kadar has admitted to making some 2,000 fake bomb threat calls to hospitals, airlines, schools and various Jewish institutions in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Britain.

The hoax threats to the JCCs and other Jewish institutions in the first three months of 2017 forced widespread evacuations and raised fears of a resurgence in anti-Semitism. Kadar’s parents and lawyer have not disputed his involvement in the bomb threats but asserted in his defense that he has a brain tumor and a low IQ.

Earlier this year it was revealed that Kadar managed to make another 100 hoax bomb threats to schools in Israel from prison.

Kadar was charged in Israel in April 2017 with thousands of counts on offenses that include publishing false information, causing panic, computer hacking and money laundering. He had been arrested in Israel the previous month in a joint operation with the FBI.

In March, the U.S. Justice Department indicted Kadar on federal hate crimes charges.</s>American-Israeli Jewish teenager Michael Kadar, seen here after a March 23, 2017 hearing, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison by an Israeli court after being convicted of making more than 2,000 threats against US Jewish and other institutions

An Israeli-American convicted of making more than 2,000 threats against US Jewish institutions, airlines, police stations and even a professional basketball team's plane was sentenced to 10 years in prison Thursday by an Israeli court.

The 20-year-old's bomb threats against Jewish institutions in the United States sparked fears of a rise in anti-Semitism in the country. Some of the offences were committed when he was a minor, the ruling said.

Israeli courts have not identified the accused because he was tried as a minor. But he has also been indicted in the United States and US authorities have identified him as Michael Ron David Kadar.

His lawyer argued that he may not have been aware of the severity of his actions because he had a brain tumour and was autistic.

The judge in the case acknowledged he was autistic, "but has a high IQ and understands his deeds very well," the ruling said.

"If not for his medical condition, the defendant would have received a much longer sentence," said the ruling from the Tel Aviv district court for youth.

The court said he called some 2,000 institutions between April 2015 and March 2017, including schools, malls, police stations, hospitals and Jewish institutions.

He also used email to make threats, it said, and threatened that "an act of terror was going to take place in their location."

American-Israeli Jewish teenager Michael Kadar, seen here after a March 23, 2017 hearing, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison by an Israeli court after being convicted of making more than 2,000 threats against US Jewish and other institutions</s>An Israeli-American man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for making more than 2,000 bomb threats against US Jewish institutions, schools, airlines, police stations and even a basketball team's plane.

Although Israeli courts did not identify the 20-year-old man because he was tried as a minor, an indictment in the US names him as Michael Ron David Kadar.

Kadar's lawyers argued he may not have grasped the severity of his actions because he had a brain tumour and was autistic, reported the AFP news agency.

The judge in the case acknowledged Kadar's autism, but said he had "a high IQ and understands his deeds very well", adding: "If not for his medical condition, the defendant would have received a much longer sentence."

His case is the latest which suggests a link between the perpetrator's mental health and malicious online acts.

The court stated Kadar made more than 2,000 threats between April 2015 and March 2017, to schools, malls, police stations, hospitals, Jewish institutions and a jet flying the Boston Celtics US basketball team to a game.

He also sent threatening emails to his victims to suggest "an act of terror was going to take place in their location".

In response to one of Kadar's bomb threats, fighter jets were scrambled in Switzerland and France to ensure that an Israeli flight in their airspace would not attempt to crash into a building.

Kadar is Jewish and from the city of Ashkelon in southern Israel, reported AFP.

According to The Times of Israel, Kadar received payments for sending bomb threats to schools from students who wished to get their examinations postponed.

He was arrested in March 2017 after investigators tracked him down following the threats against Jewish organisations in the US, which sparked concerns about antisemitic attacks.

Months after Kadar was arrested, the president was criticised for failing to condemn neo-Nazis and white supremacists following clashes in Charlottesville which left a 32-year-old woman, Heather Heyer, dead.

Politically progressive Jewish activists have also protested against the president following a deadly shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue just weeks ago.</s>An Israeli-American convicted of making more than 2,000 threats against US Jewish institutions, airlines, police stations and even a professional basketball team's plane was sentenced to 10 years in prison Thursday by an Israeli court.

The 20-year-old's bomb threats against Jewish institutions in the United States sparked fears of a rise in anti-Semitism in the country. Some of the offences were committed when he was a minor, the court ruled.

Israeli courts have not identified the accused because he was tried as a minor. But he has also been indicted in the United States and US authorities have named him as Michael Ron David Kadar.

His lawyer argued that he may not have been aware of the severity of his actions because he had a brain tumour and was autistic.

The judge in the case acknowledged he was autistic, "but has a high IQ and understands his deeds very well," the ruling said.

"If not for his medical condition, the defendant would have received a much longer sentence," said the ruling from the Tel Aviv district youth court.

The court said he called some 2,000 institutions between April 2015 and March 2017, including schools, malls, police stations, hospitals and Jewish institutions.

He also used email to make threats, it said, and indicated that "an act of terror was going to take place in their location."

Kadar, who is Jewish and from the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, was arrested in March 2017 after the wave of bomb threats against Jewish institutions in the United States.

The threats accompanied fears that hate crimes and anti-Semitic acts could be on the increase.

Rhetoric that accompanied Donald Trump's rise to president was seen by many as encouraging the extreme right and emboldening hate groups.

The arrest of a Jewish teenager over the phone and email threats complicated the debate.

Beyond the threats to Jewish institutions, Kadar was suspected of making a hoax bomb call to Delta Airlines, forcing an emergency landing, and another against an El Al flight over Switzerland.

Swiss and French warplanes were scrambled to escort the Israeli plane and prepare to shoot it down if it became clear it was going to crash into a Swiss city.

Kadar was also convicted of making similar threats against flights over New Zealand and Australia.

Others were against a plane flying the Boston Celtics US basketball team to a game and against Delaware state senator Ernesto Lopez.

He used technology to distort his voice and hide his identity.

In addition, Kadar was accused of attacking and wounding a police officer while in custody and instructing people online on making poison and bombs. Authorities said he was also in possession of child pornography.

"The court recognised the damage and panic the defendant caused many people around the world with his actions," Yoni Haddad of the state attorney's cyber division said in a statement after the sentencing.

"The defendant committed his felonies with sophistication, using fake identities and with the aim of terrorising the public."</s>Michael Kadar, an American-Israeli man convicted of terrorizing Jewish community centers across the U.S. with a wave of bogus bomb threats, was sentenced by a court in Tel Aviv to 10 years in prison Thursday.

Unidentified by Israeli media outlets on account of starting his crime spree while still a minor, the dual citizen was found guilty in June in connection with placing thousands of threatening phone calls against various victims in the U.S. and abroad between 2015 and 2017, including airports, airlines, schools and Jewish community centers.

Israeli outlets described the so-called “JCC hoax bomber” as the same person previously charged with related crimes by the U.S. Department of Justice, consequently revealing his identity as Kadar.

The Justice Department charged Kadar, 20, last year with dozens of counts connected to a wave of threatening calls placed against U.S. victims prior to his March 2017 arrest, and prosecutors subsequently filed federal hate crimes charges against him in Feb. 2018.

The dual citizen issued more than 2,000 threats prior to his arrest, according to the Israeli State Prosecutor’s office, and the U.S. Justice Department has previously identified his targets as Jewish centers in at least three states, as well as the Orlando International Airport, the Anti-Defamation League’s headquarters and the Israeli Embassy in D.C., among other targets.

“When individuals target victims of their crimes based on who they are, what they believe, or how they worship, they target the bedrock principles on which our nation was founded,” former Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement issued when the Justice Department announced the hate crime charges against Kadar.

Discussing the crimes during Thursday’s sentencing hearing, Tel Aviv District Court Judge Zvi Gurfinkel described the impact the bogus bomb threats had on victims flying aboard airlines targeted by his threats.

“One can easily imagine the terror, the fear and the horror that gripped the airplane passengers who were forced to make an emergency landing, some of whom were injured while evacuating the plane and the terrified panic caused when there was a need to evacuate pupils from schools because of fake bomb threats,” he wrote in his verdict, The New York Times reported.

Kadar did not deny responsibility during trial, instead blaming his actions on his autism, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported.

“Were it not for his condition, I would have sentenced him to 17 years in prison,” Judge Gurfinkel ruled Thursday, according to JWire, a Jewish news service that covered the case.

“This is the most cruel, cruel thing in the world,” Kadar’s mother said of the sentencing, The New York Times reported. “I’m very sorry, but I am ashamed that the country acts this way.”

Representatives for the Justice Department did not immediately comment on the sentence.</s>US-Israeli man sentenced in Israel over thousands of worldwide hoax bomb threats

An Israeli-American man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison in Israel for making about 2,000 hoax bomb threats that forced evacuations of US Jewish community centres and planes to make emergency landings.

The threats, more than 500 of which were made to Australian schools, were made by phone and email in 2016 and 2017.

They raised concern at the time in the United States that anti-Semitism was on the rise.

Psychiatrists found that the defendant, now 20 but a minor when some of the crimes were committed, was on the autism spectrum and had paranoid delusions.

But the Tel Aviv District Court that convicted him in June said he was fit to stand trial after it weighed medical opinions.

In passing sentence, the court said the defendant offered on the "dark web" — part of the internet accessible only through special software — to make bomb and shooting threats for money, earning about $US240,000 ($331,000) worth of the digital currency bitcoin.

The man, who has not been named in the proceedings in Israel due to his status as a minor when the offences took place, has been identified as Michael Kadar in separate indictments in the United States for alleged hate crimes.

The court in Tel Aviv had convicted Kadar of counts that included extortion, disseminating hoaxes in order to spread panic, money laundering and computer hacking over bomb and shooting threats against community centres, schools, shopping malls, police stations, airlines and airports in North America, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Norway and Denmark.

Locked bitcoin wallet valued at more than $1 million

The US Justice Department has said that in early 2017, Kadar made bomb threats against the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish campaign group based in New York and the Israeli embassy in Washington, as well as threatening calls about bomb and gun attacks against Jewish community centres in Florida.

Kadar, who was arrested in Israel in March 2017, is Jewish.

His parents have said he has a brain tumour that causes autism and other mental problems, making him unable to understand the nature of his actions.

"True, the accused is recognised as autistic, but he is highly intelligent and understands his actions full well," the court said, adding that it would have sent him to jail for 17 years had he not had mental health issues.

The court also said Kadar refuses to disclose the password to his bitcoin digital wallet and its value has since risen to more than $US1 million ($1.4 million).</s>The 20-year-old mastermind behind a terrifying spate of hoax bomb threats against Jewish institutions the world over between 2016 and 2017 has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Israeli-American Michael Ron David Kadar was found guilty in June of hundreds of counts of extortion, making terroristic threats, computer offenses, and money laundering, among other charges.

He used a device to shield his IP address and disguise his voice, paying for calls using bitcoin, and made fake bomb threats to several organizations, including the Israeli Embassy in Washington and the Israeli Consulate in Miami.

Among other major disruptions, Kadar’s actions led to mass evacuations of Jewish centers, hospitals and schools, caused fighter jets to scramble, and prompted commercial airliners to dump fuel and make emergency landings. He also tried to extort US State Senator Ernesto Lopez (R-DE).

He has been indicted on hate crime charges by the US Department of Justice, though it remains unclear whether the US will pursue extradition, given that the vast majority of Kadar’s offences, including weapons possession and attacking a police officer, were perpetrated on Israeli soil and involved multiple other jurisdictions including the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Kadar has been diagnosed with autism and reportedly has a brain tumour which the defense argued greatly impacted his behavior. The defendant’s lawyer said his client has attempted suicide five times since his arrest.

Tel Aviv District Court Judge Tzvi Gurfinkel was unmoved, however, asserting that despite his medical conditions Kadar could still distinguish right from wrong.

“One can imagine the terror, the fear and the dread that the airline passengers experienced when they were forced to make an emergency landing and when some were injured in the evacuation of the planes,” Gurfinkel said, as cited by Haaretz.

Kadar received a fine of 60,000 shekels (US$16,068) in addition to his prison sentence of 10 years – three years longer than the prosecution had asked for. His term will count from his initial arrest in March 2017. Kadar briefly escaped police custody after a hearing in Jerusalem earlier this year which may have impacted the sentencing.

The Tel Aviv District Court also issued new indictments against him in October, charging him with making additional hoax threats from prison and for his attempted escape.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!</s>An Israeli-American convicted of making more than 2,000 threats against US Jewish institutions, airlines, police stations and even a professional basketball team's plane was sentenced to 10 years in prison Thursday by an Israeli court.

The 20-year-old's bomb threats against Jewish institutions in the United States sparked fears of a rise in anti-Semitism in the country. Some of the offences were committed when he was a minor, the ruling said.

Israeli courts have not identified the accused because he was tried as a minor. But he has also been indicted in the United States and US authorities have identified him as Michael Ron David Kadar.

His lawyer argued that he may not have been aware of the severity of his actions because he had a brain tumour and was autistic.

The judge in the case acknowledged he was autistic, "but has a high IQ and understands his deeds very well," the ruling said.

"If not for his medical condition, the defendant would have received a much longer sentence," said the ruling from the Tel Aviv district court for youth.

The court said he called some 2,000 institutions between April 2015 and March 2017, including schools, malls, police stations, hospitals and Jewish institutions.

He also used email to make threats, it said, and threatened that "an act of terror was going to take place in their location."
An Israeli-American man, Michael Kadar, is sentenced to 10 years in prison in Israel for making 2,000 hoax bomb threats that forced evacuations of Jewish community centers in the United States. The threats, made by phone and email in 2016 and 2017, raised concern that antisemitism was on the rise in the United States.