JERUSALEM: A Jerusalem court on Monday convicted two Israeli youths in the grisly killing last year of 16-year-old Palestinian Mohammed Abu Khdeir, while delaying the verdict for the third and chief suspect in the case due to a last-minute insanity plea.

Monday’s verdict could further increase Israeli-Palestinian tensions amid a two-month wave of violence that has been convulsing the region.

In the ruling, Judge Jacob Zaban of Jerusalem’s District Court determined that the ringleader, 31-year-old Yosef Haim Ben David, and two Israeli minors snatched Abu Khdeir off an east Jerusalem sidewalk in July 2014 and burned him alive in a forest.

The judge determined that Ben David drove the car while his two accomplices beat Abu Khdeir unconscious in the back seat. Once they reached the forest, one accomplice helped Ben David douse Abu Khdeir with gasoline. Then Ben David lit the match, according to Zaban. Ben David’s attorney Asher Ohayon submitted the insanity plea. Zaban said it would be examined separately, “despite regular and appropriate protocol” later in December.

Abu Khdeir’s father Hussein denounced the verdict. “This is a lie,” he told Israeli Army Radio. “I am afraid that the court will release them (suspects) in the end.”

Hamas condemned “the exoneration” of Ben David, describing him as the Jewish settler who killed Abu Khdeir. “This is an evidence of the occupation’s racism and its sponsorship of the settlers’ crimes against the Palestinian people,” Hamas said in a statement.