A jury has convicted a Vermont man of attempted murder in the shootings of three Palestinian college students who were walking near his home, rejecting an insanity defense rooted in his claims that he was acting on orders from the CIA and Mossad. Jason Eaton, 51, faces up to life in prison over the November 2023 attack near the University of Vermont campus in Burlington, which left Hisham Awartani paralyzed from the waist down and wounded his friends, Tahseen Aliahmad and Kinnan Abdalhamid. The jury deliberated for several hours before reaching its verdict after a week-long trial that saw testimony from the three men and psychiatric experts called by the defense and prosecution.
Eaton was ordered to be held in jail pending sentencing, which has yet to be scheduled. He stared ahead blankly as the verdict was read. Awartani and Aliahmad, sitting in the front row of the courtroom gallery, smiled and hugged people around them.
After three years of sorrow, loss, and struggle, our families finally feel relief,” the families of the three men said in a joint statement. But it affirms something fundamental: Jason Eaton is responsible for what he did.” Eaton had pleaded not guilty but did not dispute that he was the shooter. His lawyers argued that he should be found not guilty by reason of insanity, pointing to his claims that the United States and Israeli intelligence agencies transmitted orders to shoot the men to him via FM radio and that God was commanding him to protect his Jewish neighbors.
Had he been found not guilty by reason of insanity, he could have been ordered to undergo mental health treatment. In their statement, the families said Eaton had repeatedly used “hateful” words to describe their sons during the trial. They are the words of a man who saw three young men celebrating their friendship and wearing what made them feel closer to their far away families and home – and decided to kill them because of his own prejudices.
We do not need a jury to tell us why our sons were targeted. We heard it, in his own words. We have said so from the beginning.” Thanking their communities in Burlington and Vermont for their support and solidarity, the families added: “That solidarity has mattered even more with each passing year, because our sons’ recovery unfolded alongside the genocide and destruction of Gaza and the escalating ethnic cleansing of the West Bank.
While our children fought to heal from being shot in Burlington, they watched Palestinian children lose their lives, their homes, their land, their families. We are grateful our sons’ suffering commanded attention and support. We grieve that so much Palestinian suffering never does.
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