As far as Idan's testimony is concerned, he confirmed in his interrogation in court that what he had told the police was true, and that the identification by the police was authentic (p. 145 of the transcript of the hearing of 9 July 2025, lines 16, 20, 22; p. 150, line 19). He explained the discrepancy between the version he gave to the police and his testimony in court, inter alia, by saying that since his interrogation he had suffered a head injury in an accident in which he was involved, which damaged his memory (see, for example, p. 136 of the transcript of the hearing of July 9, 2025, lines 10-11; p. 143, lines 24-25; p. 144, lines 2-3; p. 150, line 23). His words also support the conclusion that the version he gave to the police should be preferred.
For these reasons, and after the other conditions for the admissibility of the statement of these witnesses outside the court were met - the statement was proven and the testimony in court was substantially different from the statement, I prefer the version given by Uriel, Idan and Rinat in their police interrogations to the version they gave in court.
- Indeed, the preliminary conversations that were conducted with these witnesses about the defendant prior to his identification by the witnesses in the security camera footage, as well as the conditions under which the identification was carried out by Rinat, have implications for the weight of the identification. It is doubtful whether the defendant could have been convicted on the basis of the identities of these witnesses alone (Miscellaneous Applications Criminal 1909/23 Abu al-Qi'an v. State of Israel, para. 18 (April 5, 2023);Criminal Appeal 3055/18 Abu Raqaiq v. State of Israel, paragraphs 5, 11 (August 4, 2020); Criminal Appeal (Jerusalem District) 9528-11-16 Taktuk v. State of Israel, para. 43 (April 24, 2017)).
However, there is significant support for the identification of the defendant by these witnesses in their police interrogations, so it cannot be said that the identification of the defendant by these witnesses is weightless. Since the identification is supported by additional evidence, which strengthens its degree of certainty, I am impressed by the existence of a solid basis for a conviction (cf. Criminal Appeal 4209/14 Keren v. State of Israel, para. 38 (November 15, 2015); the Asal case, para. 4; the Abu case, at p. 92).
- As noted, the defendant was convincingly identified in excerpts from the video of Jarrah's speech by both Shimon and Rabbi Peretz. Shimon also connected the defendant to the incident and gave a detailed account of the preparation for the Sheikh Jarrah incident and the joint walk between him and the defendant in preparation for the execution of this event.
The defendant was identified by Rabbi Peretz with a high level of certainty in a segment from the Bank Leumi video. I will mention that the incident at Bank Leumi took place in close proximity to the events at Mercantile Bank and the court, and this constitutes a valuable reinforcement for the identification of the defendant by the witnesses in the videos of Mercantile Bank and the court.