A local court sentenced an Israeli national, of Palestinian origin, to life imprisonment on charges of a double murder in Kaposvár in 2018, in a non-binding ruling on Wednesday.
The Kaposvár court has also obliged the accused to pay 5 million forints (EUR 14,000) in legal costs. The 32-year-old man can be released on parole after 40 years at the earliest. The accused was sentenced in abstentia, as he is currently in custody awaiting extradition in Israel.
The man befriended a 21-year-old Hungarian woman who was pursuing her studies in Germany, in 2018. Their relationship firmed so that he introduced her to his family in Israel and regularly stayed at the rented apartment of the woman and her mother in Kaposvár, in southwestern Hungary.
The man later become jealous and aggressive seeking to isolate his girlfriend which the mother firmly opposed. Following a break-up the couple reunited on October 21, 2018 when the man was allowed to stay at the Kaposvár apartment again. But on that night he first strangled the mother and then his girlfriend. In order to cover up his act as an accident, he set fire to the apartment and was later rescued by firefighters. As he suffered no injuries he first drove to Belgrade and flew from there to Israel where he was arrested.