US man convicted in 2023 shooting of three Palestinian students in Vermont

A jury in the US state of Vermont has convicted a man of attempted murder for shooting three Palestinian college students in 2023, rejecting his defence that he was not guilty by reason of insanity.

Jason Eaton, 51, faces up to life in prison for the attack near the University of Vermont campus in Burlington. It left Hisham Awartani paralysed from the waist down and wounded his friends Tahseen Aliahmad and Kinnan Abdalhamid.

The jury deliberated for several hours on Monday before reaching its verdict after a week-long trial that included testimony from the three men and psychiatric experts called by both the defence and prosecution.

Eaton was ordered jailed pending sentencing, which has yet to be scheduled.

Awartani and Aliahmad, who were sitting in the front row of the courtroom, smiled and hugged people around them as the verdict was read.

Eaton did not dispute that he shot the three men in November 2023 . Instead, his lawyers argued that he should be found not guilty by reason of insanity.

The defence said Eaton was suffering from a delusional psychotic disorder and believed the CIA and Israel’s Mossad were transmitting messages to him through FM radio.

Joshua O’Hara, the supervising attorney at the Chittenden County Public Defender Office, told jurors that Eaton believed the intelligence agencies had enlisted him to “overwatch duty” to protect a Jewish family living across the street and that God was commanding him to act.