On April 28, 2025, police in the United Kingdom arrested terrorist Abdullah Albadri.
At the time of his arrest, Albadri was trying to climb over the fence of the Israeli embassy in London. He was carrying two knives and planned to carry out an attack in revenge for the deaths of Palestinians in Gaza. This past May, a British court found Albadri guilty by of preparation of terrorist acts and possession of two bladed articles.
On Oct. 5, the court sentenced Albadri to life in prison and a minimum term of 20 years. The sentence means that in theory, he could spend the rest of his life in prison. In any instance, he will only be eligible for consideration for parole after serving the minimum term.
The stringent sentence was a product of a substantial review and change of U.K. policy regarding the sentencing of persons convicted, inter alia, for the commission of terrorist offenses. As part of this review, the country adopted the Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Act (2021).
Unfortunately, the Israeli anti-terror legislation is fundamentally lacking in this field. Instead of the parliament setting the sentences, judges are given unlimited discretion. That discretion, as the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA) has already explained, is a critical element of the failure of the Israeli judiciary to deter terrorists.
While there are thousands of examples that could be given, here is one.
On April 28, 2020, which was Memorial Day in Israel, a Palestinian terrorist attacked a 60-year-old Israeli woman, Batya Label, stabbing her repeatedly until her life was literally hanging by a thread. The terrorist was later convicted of attempted murder as a terrorist crime.
As opposed to the U.K. legislation, the Israeli legislation only provides a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison for attempted murder as a terrorist offense.
While it would be difficult to imagine a more severe instance in which handing down the maximum sentence provided by law would be justified, the Israeli judges nonetheless decided to be lenient, sentencing Label’s attacker to just 21 years in prison. The terrorist will therefore be potentially eligible for parole after serving 14 years.
In the United Kingdom, it is sufficient to charge anyone who plans and starts carrying out a terrorist attack—without anyone being hurt—to be sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum of 20 years before that individual can be considered eligible for parole. In the State of Israel, repeatedly stabbing a victim to within millimeters of her life invokes leniency and shorter sentences.
It’s not sufficient to talk about the severity of terrorist acts, and it’s not sufficient to talk about deterrence. Rather, the severity and the deterrence should be emphasized and acted upon in every case.
While the direction of the British government toward Israel is changing for the worse, Israel’s government and the Knesset would do well to look to that example regarding the sentencing of convicted terrorists.
