Testimonies of the Defendants and the Defense Committee on this Matter
Defendant 2 said in his testimony that following the incident, he was interrogated by the police for the first time in his life. A representative of the Police Unit arrived at his home and told his parents that he was being summoned for questioning, they arrived at his place of work and drove him to the police station, where he was initially interrogated on suspicion of drug trafficking. According to him, the interrogator "asks me first of all if I want to consult with a lawyer. This is the first time I've heard what a lawyer is. I ask him what a lawyer is, why do I need a lawyer? I ask him, 'Do I need a lawyer?' He says to me, 'This is a very marginal thing, you don't need a lawyer, if you want to, yes or no?' ... Beyond that, he didn't explain to me, he didn't explain to me why I needed a lawyer..." (p. 465, paras. 5-13). To the court's question, defendant 2 replied that he knew from films what a lawyer was, but had never encountered a situation in which he needed to know what his job was and he did not know why he needed a lawyer (also at p. 506).
According to him, after the interrogation, the interrogator told him to wait outside and sat him down in the hallway, and then another interrogator "came to me and said, 'You're in trouble, come accompany me to the room.'" And in the room, in the presence of two other interrogators, the interrogator told him that Defendant 1 had "opened up to him" and that they knew that it was a murder, said that he was going to prison for life, began to hurl threats at him and deprived him of his rights. After a few minutes, the commander of the Central Bureau of Investigation entered, and "long before he even explained my rights to me... What am I being interrogated about... The commander of the Central Intelligence Unit tells me, 'We know about everything. Let's say that your partner did everything and he dragged you into the same situation and you had no choice but to get into the same situation'... He promised me that if I said what [Defendant 1] did, he would take me home. And I listened to him" (p. 466).