TEL AVIV, Israel - Three Israeli men have been sentenced to 13 years in prison for driving a suicide bomber and his handler part of the way to a Netanya shopping mall.

The bombing in 2005 killed five people and injured 30.

Judge Oded Mudrik said two of the defendants, Kfir Levy and Sif Azam, suspected the man they carried across the Green Line was a terrorist, but were willing to quell their suspicions for money. Abed Abu-Moch, who drove the bomber to Netanya, later told police he "had the face of a dead man," Haaretz reported.

Levy and Azam, who ferried Palestinians into Israel as a business, must have realized that something was wrong when the man who arranged the trip was willing to pay far more to carry two passengers than they would have earned from 10, the judge found.

The three were convicted last month of five counts of manslaughter.

As Mudrik pronounced sentence, relatives of the defendants began a protest, becoming so unruly that the judge has to leave the courtroom before he was finished.

Copyright ©  2007, by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.