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Vermont Man Convicted in Shooting of Three Palestinian Students

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A Vermont jury found Jason Eaton, 51, guilty of attempted murder for the 2023 shooting that left student Hisham Awartani paralysed. He faces up to life.

A jury in Burlington, Vermont, has found Jason Eaton guilty of attempted murder for opening fire on three Palestinian college students in November 2023, rejecting his claim that mental illness left him not responsible for the attack. Eaton, 51, now faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

The gunfire near the University of Vermont campus left Hisham Awartani paralysed from the waist down. His two friends, Tahseen Aliahmad and Kinnan Abdalhamid, were also hit. Jurors deliberated for several hours on Monday before returning the verdict, closing a trial that lasted a week and drew testimony from all three survivors as well as psychiatrists brought in by each side.

Eaton was taken into custody to await sentencing, a hearing that has not yet been placed on the calendar. As the decision was announced, Awartani and Aliahmad - seated together in the front row of the courtroom - turned to embrace supporters seated nearby.

The insanity defence

Eaton never denied firing the shots. His legal team instead asked the jury to find him not guilty by reason of insanity, arguing that he was in the grip of a delusional psychotic disorder. According to the defence, he was convinced that the CIA and Israel's Mossad were sending him instructions over FM radio.

Joshua O'Hara, the supervising lawyer at the Chittenden County Public Defender Office, told jurors that his client believed the two intelligence services had assigned him to stand guard over a Jewish family who lived across the road, and that a divine command was pushing him to act.

Prosecutors urged the panel to dismiss that account. They pointed to a state psychiatrist's finding that Eaton suffered from no mental disease or defect, and said the facts pointed to a clear intent to kill.

A Thanksgiving walk in Burlington

The three friends, all now 23, spent their childhood together in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank before crossing to the United States to attend university. They had gathered in Burlington to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with Awartani's grandmother.

On the night of the attack, the group set out for an evening walk close to the university. Awartani told the court they were smoking cigarettes and moving between English and Arabic as they talked. Two of the three wore keffiyehs.

According to his testimony, Eaton was standing on the porch of his apartment building and stepped toward them without a word. From a distance of roughly five to 10 feet, Awartani said, Eaton drew a handgun and started firing.

Awartani, at the time enrolled at Brown University, took a round to the chest that severed his ability to walk. Aliahmad, a student at Trinity College, was struck in the collarbone. Abdalhamid, who was studying at Haverford College, was shot in the right buttock.

No hate crime charges

The attack drew demands for investigators to treat it as a hate crime, given that the victims are Palestinian and were speaking Arabic and wearing keffiyehs. No such charges were ultimately brought.

When officers searched Eaton's apartment, they recovered three shotguns along with a Ruger .380-calibre handgun. Laboratory analysis identified that pistol as the weapon fired at the three students.

With the verdict now delivered, attention turns to sentencing, where Eaton could be ordered to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Jason Eaton verdict, Palestinian students Vermont shooting, Hisham Awartani, University of Vermont Burlington, attempted murder conviction, insanity defence rejected, Tahseen Aliahmad Kinnan Abdalhamid

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