"After the third stage and juxtaposing the two versions against each other, the judge remains with his conscience and is required to decide whether, as a general conclusion, the prosecution has met the threshold required to determine that a person is guilty of the acts attributed to him. This conclusion must be the only logical conclusion, clear beyond reasonable doubt, and prevails over any other rational possibility" (Krief case, para. 125)."
Investigative Failures
Counsel for the defendant argued, from a very initial stage, that the police had abandoned possible directions of investigation and focused only on the defendant, while ignoring, almost demonstratively, other disputes in which the deceased was involved. In particular, the words were said about Ilan Halahmi (who testified in the defense case) and Shimon Dadon (who testified during the prosecution's case) and his son Aviel, whose lives were cut short in a car accident shortly after the murder and before the version of his case was raised. Many witnesses, including the head of the investigation team, were asked about the lack of contact with members of the Dadoun family on the day of the murder, after his name came up from two (Moran Vaknin and Yaakov Greenstein). We do not believe that this was a real or significant omission, since at the end of the second day (Ilan Halahmi and Shimon Dadon) were interrogated, although not with a warning. The fact that their details came up as people in conflict with the deceased does not create a sufficient basis for the existence of a reasonable suspicion that the murder of the deceased was committed. The investigators, headed by the head of the team, Shai Peleg (February 20, 2023, p. 2034, p. 2036, p. 2064, for example) explained, and reiterated that the defendant was arrested and interrogated with a warning in view of the existence of an evidentiary basis for establishing a reasonable suspicion, and their position is acceptable to us. Again, the existence of a conflict does not create a reasonable suspicion of murder, but at most it allows for a certain direction of investigation. In our case, the initial evidence actually dealt with the Chevrolet vehicle connected to the incident, and not necessarily with a specific person. From the moment a clear connection was created between the Chevrolet car and the defendant, it seems that it was right to concentrate on the defendant as a suspect and not on the other people of the deceased's quarrel. This is especially true that later, shortly after the murder, additional evidence was discovered linking the defendant to the incident, while he himself took pains to remain silent in a demonstrative, harsh and unequivocal manner, and was careful not to give in the interrogation any version that could explain the said evidence. It should not be forgotten that the police even immediately tried to locate security camera footage near Shimon Dadon's home (even if they did not do so optimally), and later took a statement from him. He did not conceal the existence of a dispute with the deceased, including a confrontation in which the deceased waved a wooden plank at him, and for this reason he even filed a complaint against the deceased.