Vermont Jury Convicts Jason Eaton of Attempted Murder in 2023 Shooting of Three Palestinian College Students

A jury in the US state of Vermont has convicted Jason Eaton of attempted murder for shooting three Palestinian college students in November 2023, rejecting his legal team's defense that he was not guilty by reason of insanity.

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

After a week-long trial featuring testimony from the victims and psychiatric experts, the jury reached its verdict following several hours of deliberations on Monday. Jason Eaton was ordered jailed pending a sentencing hearing that has not yet been scheduled.

During the trial, Jason Eaton did not dispute that he shot the three men. However, defense attorneys argued he suffered from a delusional psychotic disorder, believing that the CIA and Israel’s Mossad were transmitting messages to him via FM radio and commanding him to act. Prosecutors countered with evidence from a state psychiatrist concluding that Jason Eaton did not have a mental disease or defect and fully intended to kill the victims.

The victims—Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Aliahmad, and Kinnan Abdalhamid, now 23—grew up together in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank and were visiting Hisham Awartani’s grandmother in Burlington for the Thanksgiving holiday. While walking near the University of Vermont campus speaking English and Arabic and wearing keffiyehs, Jason Eaton approached them from his porch and opened fire with a Ruger .380-calibre handgun.