Filing an appeal to the Supreme Court, conducting voice identification arrangements and other investigative actions, releasing the respondent
- On August 31, 1999, about two weeks after the District Court's decision to detain the respondent until the end of the proceedings, the respondent filed an appeal with the Supreme Court. The appeal, which lasted 29 pages, dealt in detail with the alleged evidence and the difficulties arising from it, and included arguments regarding the issue of the respondent's identification, interrogation failures, and the police's attempts to link him to the act, including through lies and violence.
In the statement of appeal, the respondent raised For the first time A new alibi claim, according to which on the day of the incident he was at the home of a Perach camper between 17:30 and 21:30 (and not until 19:30, as claimed earlier, based on the registration in Perach). As proof of his claim, the respondent relied on the recording of telephone calls from his home, which shows that at 17:23:07 a call was made to the camper's home, and at 17:23:58 a call was made to Ruppin College, where he studied at the time. According to the respondent, he called the apprentice's house in order to inform him that he was a little late, and immediately afterwards he called the college to ask for an extension regarding a book that he had on loan.
- On the day of the hearing of the appeal in the Supreme Court, September 8, 1999, the respondent's defense attorney contacted the state's counsel and stated that he had additional evidence that could assist the respondent, and the parties agreed to ask the court to postpone the hearing of the appeal in order to allow for further investigative actions. The court (the Honorable Justice Dorner) accepted the request and adjourned the hearing to September 22, 1999 (Miscellaneous Criminal Applications 5874/99 Schweber v. State of Israel).
The new document presented to the prosecution was the output of calls from the respondent's mother's cell phone, which the respondent claimed he had in his possession on the day the minor was attacked, and which indicates that a phone call was made from the phone that evening at 20:22. I will note that as soon as the respondent is arrested and his personal details such as address and telephone numbers are recorded, a cell phone number appears, which is his mother's phone. However, this was the first time since the beginning of his interrogation that the respondent had raised an allegation that on the eve of the incident he had carried a cell phone with him and even used it.
- The very next day, a representative of the District Attorney's Office contacted the police with a request to locate the location from which the call was made. It was also noted that the respondent agreed for the first time to conduct a live vote identification procession.
On September 13, 1999, Sergeant Sweid called a representative of Pelephone, who clarified that it was not possible to determine with certainty the location of the caller, since if there was a load on the relay near which the subscriber was located, the call would be transferred to another relay. On the same day, the head of the Sharon District Bureau of Investigations rejected the request to conduct such a location, on the grounds that the examination was ineffective.
- The next day, the respondent's counsel contacted a representative of the State Attorney's Office, and attached to his letter an engagement agreement between the respondent's sister and Orange, which strengthens the respondent's version that he was in possession of the cell phone that was registered in his mother's name. In addition, the respondent's counsel claimed that on the eve of the incident, the respondent called the owner of the pension where his father lived, and came to him in order to pay the rent. Counsel for the respondent attached a manual receipt signed by the owner of the pension, dated April 18, 1999, the day of the incident.
On the same day, a representative of the District Attorney's Office returned and asked the police to complete the following investigation: to obtain a location of the call that came out of the cell phone, which the respondent claimed was in his possession, which took place on the day of the incident at 20:22; to interrogate the owner of the pension; to check the calls marked in the flash output of the respondent's home – whether calls were indeed made to the camper's house and to Ruppin College, and if the answer is yes, to check where the respondent's brother and sister were at those hours; to take a close-up photograph of the respondent's ears; Urgently perform a voice recognition arrangement.
- The owner of the pension, who goes by the name Yoram Cohen, was interrogated on the same day. He confirmed that the respondent's father lives with him and he knows who his children are, including the respondent. Sergeant Sweid presented Mr. Cohen with the handwritten receipt that he had signed, and he confirmed that the respondent had called him that day to know where he lived in order to come and pay the rent for his father. According to him, he remembers that the respondent came to him after 8:00 P.M., since that is the time when he closes the business, and in his words, "eight or more, maybe nine or nine and a half, not after 10 p.m., because I wouldn't let him come after 10 p.m." In response to the investigator's question about the call received on his cell phone at 8:22 p.m. on the evening of the incident, Cohen replied that he remembered that one of the boys had indeed called him to find out where he lived, but he could not say for sure which of the boys called, because he did not recognize their voices. However, he is certain that it was the respondent who came to his house that evening to pay the rent. In response to the investigator's question as to why the respondent came to pay, Cohen replied that it was possible that since the respondent's father had been hospitalized about a week or two earlier. Cohen also said that sometimes the respondent's father pays at the beginning of the month, sometimes in the middle and sometimes afterwards, but he does not pressure him on the matter of payment.
Cohen gave another notice the next day, September 15, 1999, and stated that the respondent's father was the one who always pays, and that he did not know the reason why the respondent himself came to pay the rent, since he did not pressure him to come and pay. Cohen also stated that he did not keep records or give receipts for the rent, and he agreed to the respondent's request to give him a note, since the latter insisted on receiving something in hand.
- On the same day, an order was issued to Pelephone instructing it to locate the phone call that went out from the date of the offense at 20:22. The District Attorney's Office even sent a letter to the police asking for the location to be carried out urgently. We will preface the latter and note that about two weeks later, on September 30, 1999, a reply was received from Pelephone, according to which the call in question was made from Sector No. 3 in Netanya. It was also reported that the camper's home address is covered by Sector 3 in Netanya, but not exclusively, so it is not possible to determine where the call was made from. In addition, an examination conducted on 29 September 1999 revealed that calls made from the area of the courtyard of the building in which the minor was attacked were covered by sectors 5 and 6 and the center of Netanya (i.e., different sectors from sector 3).
- On September 16, 1999, the respondent was interrogated again and gave his version that on the day of the incident he was at the camper's home between approximately 17:40-21:30. To the question of why he registered in the form of Perach hours different from the hours when he really was, He replied "First of all, I was two weeks old and couldn't remember exactly. And besides, these are the hours that are not customary because these are such young children." According to his version, he called from his apartment at 5:23 p.m. to the camper's house to inform him that he was late, and to Ruppin College in order to extend the validity of borrowing a book from the college library.
- On the same day, a voice identification parade was held, in which 8 extras participated, whose voices were heard to the minor one after the other. We will briefly describe what happened in the identification lineup, as revealed in the children's investigator's report.
The minor asked about Commissioner No. 5 if he was Russian, and added "because he was not Russian"; From Commissioner No. 6, the minor asked to speak more slowly; After hearing Commissioner No. 7 ask, "What number was that?" and then "Okay, next"; And after hearing Commissioner No. 8, she asked, "Can I hear No. 7 again?" In response, the minor was told that she would have to hear them all again, and she responded that she did not need to hear them all again, but only No. 7.