There were rumors that touched Ben during the years he lived in the center of the country. In addition, he said, he did not see the need to share the
The police do this because it is not his job, when he says, "That the police do their job. That the police put up cameras and do things. I don't need to say what happened and what happened" (p. 942). When asked why he not only did not tell the policeman Netanel Weizmann in the ambulance about the two other assailants, but claimed to him that Ben Dadoun stabbed him because of a dispute with the father, he replied that he did not remember anything from that stage until his arrest, and after the prosecutor replied that he was actually alert, gave his ID number accurately, and even corrected the policeman in relation to his last name (Maddosh Ladadon), he replied that he may have lost his mind for a second and then said the words, but he does not remember that it happened. Later in his cross-examination (11 July 2023), the prosecutor played the defendant a recording of Y.A. to MDA, and he was asked what he had done next to the deceased, when he shouted at him, "Maor, leave him." According to him, at the same time he was sitting next to the deceased, turned him from his back to the side and straightened his legs (p. 880, 25). He checked his condition and tried to talk to him, but Ben did not respond and only opened his eyes and muttered. He confirmed that at this stage, he understood that the deceased's condition was serious. When asked why he went to the right and left, and what he was looking for there, he replied that his head was not there, and that he had thoughts about what had happened "with all the people who came and all the shouting that was there and that was hysteria" (p. 882, para. 10). He insisted that he did not lean towards the deceased, but sat next to him, demonstrating a downward bending position, without placing his buttocks on the floor. His hands were open because of the cuts, and there was a distance of 10-20 centimeters between them. When asked why S.A. would shout in his direction to leave him, he replied, "I know what the person is going through with himself, what movies he watches, what movies he watches in his head? What is he screaming and screaming?" (pp. 883, paras. 4-5), and when asked why he did not ask him to come to help or call for help, S.A. replied. He called, and although he did not hear who or what he said, he assumed that it was a call for help. He himself did not have a mobile phone, and his mind was not there. He also added that everyone reacts differently to the situation - there are those who take the pressure out, like Y.A. who shouted, and there are those who are more introverted - like him. As for the guy on the roof (M.A.) - he claimed that he did not see him. When confronted with his version that while Yoram shouted to leave him, someone leaned over the deceased and stabbed him, he replied to the plaintiff, "I don't know what you're talking about at all" (p. 885, para. 10). He added, "M.A. said that he saw only a second of the incident and came down from the roof, that he did not recognize him and that he was not confronted with him, and that he did not confront Y.A. and not M.A. - They said that they saw and recognized him stabbing the deceased. To the plaintiff's question, he replied that he did not know M.A., ruled out a dispute with him, and added on his own initiative that he had no dispute with the deceased either. When the court confronted him with M.A.'s version. When he saw someone stabbing the deceased, he replied that perhaps it was one of the attackers, and he saw it before calling L.A. to call for help. When the plaintiff insisted that, according to his testimony, the assailants had left the place and he approached the deceased and leaned over him, and therefore, necessarily, he was the one who also stabbed him, he replied that he did not lean over, but sat next to him, and that she had "the face of an evil woman" (p. 891). He tried to reconcile the contradiction between Y.A.'s shouts. To M.A. about leaning and stabbing, and his own version, and offered the plaintiff a possibility, according to which "I may have told you that they were gone, they were there at that time. They were and when (Y.A.) also said that he saw silhouettes of the people walking and returning. Perhaps at that time they continued and left the place" (p. 893, paras. 8-10). When she noted that both Y.A. and M.A. They did not see more than one person in the place - M.A. insisted that he saw three people. He testified that he saw three people. He was asked, again, why he went to the right and left after getting up, and he replied that he went towards the storeroom, looked in front of her, and entered the house in the direction of the "first scene" in the kitchen. He went on to describe what happened in the first scene as follows: "I confronted them and then they slipped outside and I was standing like that, and then I came to a person again, I grabbed him, one of them went to the other arena and then he continued on him. And I was with the person under the pergola. So I couldn't anymore, I sat with myself like that, I rubbed against the concrete, I grabbed him so that he wouldn't go to him, I grabbed him so that he wouldn't go to him, I grabbed him by the leg or from his shirt and something like that. And I rubbed on the floor and stayed on the floor and then they continued and after that they came in my direction and someone kicked me and they went in through the house and got out" (p. 896 Q. 6-12). He went on to describe the course of events, saying, "I went into the house and from the house they slipped. I was with a person who was with the deceased, one person with the deceased at the other scene there. And I was with the person under the pergola when he came and tried to cut me and I caught him" (pp. 897, paras. 1-3). Later, he objected to the plaintiff's description that he fled the scene, claiming that he could not run at all and had nowhere to go. According to him, he just went to see what was happening and where these people (the attackers) went, because he did not know where he was. The plaintiff slammed him in the face that the medic had seen him running on the road, and added that he had run away, and he replied that she was also a "liar." After the court noted that the medic did indeed say that he saw someone running, and so did another witness - the defendant changed his tastes, agreed that he ran, and claimed that he wanted to run - and that he was doing what he wanted, and that he would not be told what to do and would not be asked questions. According to him, he did so also because he had anxieties about the police, which is, as he put it, "bad, bad people, very, very bad" (p. 900, para. 24), and he was afraid that he would be accused of doing it. Either way, he insisted that he did not run away, but sat down and let the medic take care of him. He answered in the negative, to the question of whether the medic who treated him was also a bad person, and when asked why he had told him that he had fallen, he replied that he did not remember what he had told him. When asked why he did not tell the policemen that there were two people who had stabbed him and Ben, and did not ask them to approach him, he replied, "I don't know, it didn't cross my mind" (p. 903, s. 10, p. 904, s. 32), while denying that he wanted him to die, and added, "God forbid" and "that his soul will be in heaven with God's help." The plaintiff repeatedly slammed him in the face, that at the stage he was receiving treatment and drinking, he also corrected the policeman regarding his exact name, and they answered the question of what happened - that Ben Dadoun ran to him and stabbed him, and the defendant replied that he did not think he had said such a thing, suggested that he might have said "a human being" and not "a son" (later, at p. 911, at para. 24, he explained to the plaintiff that it was a "bridge word"), and asked to hear the recording - in which it was also stated that it was due to a family dispute with his father. The defendant replied that he did not remember himself there at all, because he was "on the level of fainting", with an infusion and a vagueness. When the plaintiff continued to ask him about what he had said to Policeman Saleh, he replied: "Surely the policemen put people in the water and put things on me or they put a headset on me and started talking to me, I don't know what to think anymore... Maybe they put a headset on me and told me what to say" (pp. 907, 6-7 and 9). Later on, and in response to a question about whether he thinks he was given drugs and that's why he said so, he clarified: "I believe they put drugs on me, I believe that this policeman who went down without a camera that I was following now in this I don't know what he did to me. He brought me a shot, I don't know what he did to me. I don't know or he put a small headset on me, I don't know what he did to me. They started asking questions, I don't remember where I was at all. Personally, I don't remember where I was. I don't know where I would have been. I was drugged, I think, I don't know what they did to me there" (p. 908, paras. 2-8). When she slammed him, that he remembers very well what he said, he replied with the question of why she did not relate to what he said about Dan Dan, and the fact that he attacked and stabbed him. The plaintiff went on to say that when Policeman Saleh asked him what had happened, he replied that Ben had stabbed him, and when asked who he was with, he replied "alone." His answer to this is that he has nothing to say about it (p. 911, para. 10). When he was presented with his version of Policeman Karadi - that Ben had attacked and stabbed him, while he himself had defended himself against him, and thus in fact injured his hands - the defendant replied that it might have been possible to interpret things differently (for example, that he was referring to a person and not to Ben Dadoune), and raised the question of whether an interrogation in such a situation is even acceptable. He explained his choice to remain silent during his interrogations with the police, against the background of his fear of the police, and his lack of trust in them, contrary to the court. As for his later version, according to which he and the deceased were attacked by two others, and to the question of why he brought it up at such a late stage - he replied that he had told his defense attorney about it at the beginning of the proceeding, but he, for his own reasons, chose to present it as it was, only at a later stage. The defendant recalled the morning of the incident, when he said that he used to enter the grandmother's house from wherever he wanted, and that same day he arrived at the back of the house - assuming that he would meet her in the warehouse, a cook. He also described his actions, after he said goodbye to her: "Looking, walking, returning for a walk... smoking a cigarette, looking at the yard from behind" (pp. 926, 26 and 28). According to him, during that time he sat on the chair in the yard, went into the house to get a drink from the refrigerator, went out, did not see Ben and did not hear anything. When he finished drinking, he sat on the chair and smoked a cigarette, but he did not know how long it would take, because he was without a watch or a phone. He went back and forth behind the neighbor's house, and also in the parking area. After 10-20 minutes, he suddenly heard shouts from the house, when he was 10 meters from the pergola - "Enough, ay, it's... No. What did I do, what is it?" A second or two later, he entered the house, and when asked what happened then, he said that he had already told it several times and did not want to repeat it. Still, he continued - there were two people there, but he didn't remember what they looked like or what they were wearing, he didn't know them, he entered the house through the back door - about a meter and a half or two. He saw that Ben was being attacked, but he didn't know how. One with a knife and the other with a Japanese knife, and they both stabbed and attacked. It was a matter of seconds. He tried to separate them and grabbed one of them. The other "continued on Ben." The same person said to him (forever) - "Get out of here so that you don't have it too, we'll do for you what we're doing" (pp. 935, 28-29), and he told him to leave the person alone and what it was. The witness grabbed the knife and the shirt for the same assailant, and the other pulled him and thus he was cut. He continued to cut it, and "slipped out". Ben tried to run away and one of them continued on him, it was a matter of seconds until they were gone - maybe a minute or a minute and a half of the whole situation. To the plaintiff's question, if he did not actually enter the house, but only a meter and a half or two - how does he explain that his blood was smeared on all the walls of the house, he replied that when the incident ended, he went out through the house and had splashes of blood from his hands, and he opened the door with his elbow because of the pain and blood in his hand. To the question of whether he entered the house and immediately left, he replied, "I don't remember. It could also be that I was walking around the house or looking at the rooms, I don't remember" (pp. 940, paras. 2-3), and continued, "I was walking around the rooms, thinking maybe there was someone in the house and there was no one in the house, and then I went out" (ibid., paras. 17-18). To the question of which knife he was cut from, he replied that the Japanese mazu, and how his blood reached the regular knife - he explained that he kept squirting blood from his hand. As for the blood of the deceased, which was under the defendant's fingernails, he replied that he might have touched him, moving him from side to side and straightening his legs. When asked to explain M.A.'s version. that he had seen the opening motion of a knife and the movements of stabbing, while Y.A. shouted, "Maor, leave him" - the defendant replied, "M.A. He did not identify him as the one who stabbed, nor did Y.A., and neither of the two spoke of a knife that he saw for sure. When he was referred to video 2 on the security camera (P/49), and after initially claiming that he did not identify himself, the defendant confirmed that he was the one who watched the video, from 09:02 (camera time) to 09:23. When the prosecutor presented him with the possibility that he was disturbed by something while he was walking around the yard, he replied, "That's how I walk alone with myself, I don't have so many friends" (p. 951, 14-15). Towards the end of the interrogation, the prosecutor slammed the defendant, who had brutally stabbed Ben because he wanted him to die, and his answer was "a lie. This is not true" (p. 961, para. 6). She went on to tell him the sequence of events, as she claimed, and he denied and denied, for his part, every claim and claim that she raised. At the end of her speech, and after she claimed to him that he had surprised Ben from behind, when he sat on the couch, attacked him cruelly, did not let him escape, pinned him to the walls and stabbed him repeatedly, while cutting his hands, more than 100 stabs, replied: "All that you are describing now is one big lie, all that you take out of your mouth and I think one more thing, if you say how long does all this take all this time?”)p. 962, paras. 25-27) and continued, "Here's a fact, you see me walking all this. Okay? Here's a picture here that shows everything that I'm just walking. Okay? Thank you very much" (ibid., paras. 29-30). In his re-interrogation, the defendant reiterated that Daniel Sarhasher was at the scene, clarified that he did not remember what he said to the police, and reiterated that he had lost blood and believed that he had been drugged, or that he had been injected with something, and therefore did not remember anything. He also answered in the negative, to his defense attorney's question, whether there was anyone who prevented him from continuing walking, and confirmed that he had sat down of his own free will, so that he would be treated and bandaged (p. 964).
- If so, and after the defendant's version has been brought, which includes his earlier and later references to the three points of time mentioned above, we will turn to examine it, with an emphasis on its reliability and feasibility, against the background of the additional evidence and testimonies that were heard in the proceeding and reviewed above.
- Let us begin with the defendant's interrogations with the police, in which, as stated, he chose to remain silent, whether because of his desire to avoid self-incrimination, or for other reasons reserved for him. His choice to follow this path, despite the fact that it is a right enshrined in law, naturally creates the impression that he has something to hide, and as is enshrined in the law, also serves as a support for the prosecution's evidence. We will preface by saying that despite the defendant's silence throughout his interrogations, what he said in his first statement, which was taken at the hospital, shortly after the incident, does not benefit his version today. It is not for nothing that the defense argued that since he was not duly warned, the statements he gave in the framework of it should not be used, since they were prima facie inadmissible. In this regard, the author of the statement testified and explained that he did not know, at that stage, whether the defendant was a suspect or a victim, and therefore he refrained from his formal warning. His answer was backed up by senior investigative officials in the case, and was found to be authentic in my opinion. Hence, the claim of inadmissibility of the first statement, in which the defendant claimed that it was the deceased who stabbed him, through no fault of his own, and that the cuts in his hands were the result of his self-defense against the other, must be rejected. This "preliminary" version, similar to what he gave to the medic who treated him in the field, is the defendant's statement, for all intents and purposes. The version contradicts the current and detailed line of defense that was later formulated. In addition, the body language used by the defendant during his interrogations also indicates the discomfort he faced, when questions and evidence were thrown at him by the various interrogators, to the extent that, at certain moments (and in particular, this reaction was prominent in the fifth interrogation, of April 1, 2021, when the suspicions against him were hurled at him) - he turned his chair and completely refrained from looking at his interrogators and being in eye contact with them. This, too, strengthens the negative impression of his denying - belated and suppressed version. There were no convincing explanations for the accusation against him.
- The answer given by the defendant at the beginning of the proceeding, even though the interrogation materials, most of which were in the hands of the defense at that stage, were laconic and lacking, and in fact his version came before us with considerable delay, after hearing various witnesses, including his family members and the main eyewitnesses. His later version holds a conclusive claim of innocence - that the murder was committed by unknown persons, and that he himself found himself in a situation entirely by chance, and fell an innocent victim of the criminal act committed by others against the deceased. We will clarify that the mere suppression of a defendant's so-called exculpatory version does not, in itself, and in any event, constitute support for the incriminating evidence, or severely damage his credibility, to the extent that in certain situations, the suppression of the testimony was explained in a logical and plausible manner, or alternatively, that the suppression of the testimony was shared by his associates or confidants, prior to the completion of the work of collecting the evidence by the investigative unit, it is possible that the suppressed version would have been found by the court to be reliable, if the same convincing explanation was found. This is not the case here. On the contrary, the defendant's naïve explanations for suppressing his acquittal version, which were given during his testimony in court, were found to be unreasonable, and were far from arousing confidence. They ranged from "disavowing" any need on his part, to provide information or to assist the law enforcement agencies in reaching the truth, claiming that it was not his job to do so, to the fear that he would be swallowed up, to "accusing" his defense attorney, and imposing the sole discretion to suppress the version, on him alone. The timing of the presentation of the version carries negative weight, but, in our circumstances - only secondary, taking into account the testimony of the body and its content - which are problematic, unreliable and completely unconvincing.
- The defendant's testimony, which was reviewed above, left a negative and unreliable impression, as noted. It was evident that it was given in a deliberate, cautious, and deliberately vague manner, with the clear purpose of trying to adapt the version to the fabric of evidence that had been formed, on the one hand, and to keep the defendant's positioning as far away as possible, enabling the execution of the acts attributed to him, on the other. His version was replete with contradictions - internal and external, and did not inspire trust. Many of the questions he was asked were not answered, and to many more - he answered in an evasive, illogical and even aggressive manner.
- We will briefly present the main points of his later version, and for the sake of convenience, this will be done by dividing it into the three time segments mentioned above:
- With regard to the time preceding the incident, the defendant denied that he had a conflict with the deceased, or with any of his family, and tried, in every way, to describe the relationship between them as normal and free of animosity. This, whether with the cooperation of the court in the fact that the two worked together in covering buildings, denying the possibility of threats on his part against the deceased, and in an attempt to discredit the mother, who raised this possibility - as a "big liar", and in between, by presenting a certain situation - on his own initiative and not necessarily in an appropriate context. It is said that the defendant claimed before us that the deceased had spoken with his parents (the defendant), when the latter was serving a prison sentence that was apparently imposed on him for harming his father (the deceased), and made it clear to them that as far as he was concerned, he had nothing to do with him, and that he was going to say goodbye. Even if this innocent and non-violent description on his part - the impression received regarding the nature of the relationship between them - was different. On the internal level - after repeated attempts to rule out a possible motive on his part to harm the deceased, the defendant revealed, after all, such a motive - and this is an explanation he gave for the injury to the deceased's father at the time. According to him, he worked for him but was not paid for his labor, and "the sweat of a human being is not taken". On the external level, as stated above - we were exposed to a long-standing dispute between the defendant and the deceased, and to the murky family background between the two. Hence, in his testimony in court, the defendant did not succeed in refuting the existence of a possible motive, on his part, to harm the deceased, but on the contrary - he established such a motive and convinced him of its relevance, at the time at hand. Admittedly, proof of motive is not required within the framework of proving the elements of the offense, however, the existence of a motive confirms the conclusion from the other evidence.
His arrival at the grandmother's house, and what happened on the morning of the incident, were also described by him, to a large extent, in a neutral manner. According to him, he arrived at the grandmother's house early in the morning, so that she would prepare a "parana" for him and cook for him, and that all his "walking" around her house, after she had gone to her business, was intended to plan how he would help her and where his help was needed in maintaining the yard. This innocent description also contradicts the external evidence. The security camera video shows the defendant walking back and forth, close to the time of the incident, clearly uncalm. Even if we accept his version that he was not sleepwalked, and completely ignore the evidence that spoke of him being near the house holding two knives (which is not admissible, as explained), the question remains as to whether he arrived at the grandmother's house at the specified time, whether he remained there, even after the latter's death, and walked, back and forth, in the vicinity of the house, until he entered it, knowing that the grandmother had already moved away. Here too, we are dealing with circumstantial evidence that is, at the very least, suspicious and questionable.
- With regard to the incident itself - the defendant confirmed his presence at the two scenes of the offense, inside the house and in the yard, but this - again, in an innocent and unreliable manner. He described how he entered the house, the first time, but to take a bottle of drink from the refrigerator, and the second time - when he heard the sounds of a fight in the area. In the middle between these two entrances, he did not see or hear anything unusual. His (second) entry there was done following the sounds he heard, and in an attempt to understand what it was about and to offer help to his son, who was attacked by unknown assailants. His version of those seconds was full of contradictions - it was not clear how many attackers the defendant noticed when he entered the house, he did not know which of them he could not describe in any identifying detail, and the discourse and conduct at the scene were also described by him in a vague and evasive manner, and he refrained from repeating them, claiming that he did not want to repeat what he had said. Knowing the investigative material in the file, it was evident that he was trying to adapt the version he gave to the same evidence. Thus, for example, he claimed that the defendant's stabs were caused by a knife (which was later seized), while he himself was cut from another knife (Japanese), and that although his entry was limited to 1-1.5 meters, his blood was found throughout the house, because he had passed there before leaving, bleeding from his hands, and even "rubbed" on the floor during his struggle with the unknown assailant. His explanations regarding his presence at the second scene, and his actions there, and their direct contradiction with the external evidence, first and foremost the version of the two eyewitnesses, paved the way for understanding what was happening at home and abroad in a way that was not consistent with his story, but with the accuser's version. According to the defendant's version, when he went out into the yard, after a struggle with one of the assailants, he found the deceased lying and stabbed. He described how he tried to help him, and to improve his posture in order to make it easier for him to breathe. At first, he claimed that he did not understand the severity of his condition (in order to explain why he did not call forces to the scene, later), but later confirmed that he had in fact heard him screaming and understood that his condition was serious. According to his version, which at this point resembled the two witnesses who witnessed what was happening, he knelt down at the bleeding deceased (and insisted that it was sitting and not kneeling), on his left side. Since he bleed himself, he explained that his blood came into contact with the deceased, and with the knife in which he was stabbed by the same unknown other, and that the deceased's blood even entered under his fingernails, when he wished to improve his body position and help him. The cries of the neighbor Y.A. Towards him, at first they were described by him as "hysterical", baseless, and taken from his "fevered mind" and his criminal record, and later, when it was clear that these were consistent with M.A.'s version. - The defendant changed his reasoning, and wished to claim that the two could have seen one of the stabbers on top of the deceased, while he was struggling with the other vigorously inside the house, and before he had even been able to get out of there. His explanations for the questions addressed to him on these points were given in a firm and sarcastic manner, with great confusion and deliberate ambiguity, while throwing questions and conclusions that did not help to benefit him. The defendant tried, in every way, and despite Y.A.'s later explanations. to describe "shadows" and "figures", to adhere to the initial version of this, and to distance himself from the commission of the act and from being the one who stabbed the deceased, again and again, in the yard of the house, in front of the witnesses, and even at the time of Y.A. shouting at him, begging him to stop doing so. The version of the two, which was reviewed extensively, was persuasive because it was simultaneous, and because the defendant committed the offenses alone, with great violence, and as a reasonable conclusion arises, out of the awareness that the result could be the death of the deceased.
- With regard to the last stage, and the defendant's hasty exit from the various scenes towards the front of the street, his version continued to develop, even during his testimony in court. The core of his version in this section sought to convince us that as a result of his medical condition, which included massive blood loss from the cuts on his hands, as well as the trauma he experienced inside and outside the house, he suffered from blurring and confusion, which led him to say things that did not reflect what actually happened. The attempts to explain why he claimed to the medic that he had fallen, and why he told the policeman that his son had been stabbed and he defended himself and was injured - complicated him more than they helped, and were false, and lacked internal logic. At a certain point, he suggested that he might have said these things - as a result of the effect of medications that had been injected to him, without his knowledge, by the police, that they might have put something in his ear and instructed him what to say. He repeatedly claimed that he did not remember anything from that point onwards, and the more he continued to raise possibilities and give narrow and illogical explanations for his conduct at that stage, the stronger the impression grew that these were pretexts that had no basis in reality. In practice, and as can also be seen in the body camera videos of the policemen, and to learn from the testimonies reviewed above - the defendant answered the questions in a fairly clear manner, and even gave his name and ID number, accurately. He deliberately refrained from calling for help for the deceased, and did not mention the latter's presence in the yard of the house, bleeding to death. At first, S.A. claimed that he was bleeding to death. He called for rescue forces, as a reason why he did not call for help himself, but he contradicted himself when he claimed that he had not heard Y.A. at all, and only assumed from the latter's acquaintance with the deceased that he would take care of him. As noted in the analysis of the evidence of this passage, given the defendant's criminal record, it is indeed possible that he probably refrained from remaining at the scene until the arrival of the forces, in order to play his exculpatory version to them, as a spontaneous and "anxious" reaction. Even so, it would have been necessary, at a slightly later stage, insofar as he had indeed witnessed Ben being assaulted by others, to tell about it, at the first opportunity, and at the very least - to call for help for his bleeding cousin. These actions would have actually helped him remove the suspicion that he was involved in the matter - insofar as he feared. His choice to remain silent about these two matters, and moreover - to give a version, which is also false in his view, in response to questions addressed to him in real time - conveys the opposite, of the innocence with which he sought to persuade.
In light of all of the above, from the evidence that was brought and from the testimonies that were heard, including the testimony of the defendant himself, which is a suppressed and developing version, I am satisfied that the accuser was able to prove that it was the defendant who stabbed the deceased. His version was found to be false, both in an internal examination full of contradictions and unreliability, and also in the fact that it stood and was concealed in the face of incriminating external evidence, which was examined and found to be reliable. The mental element associated with the stabbing will be discussed below.
- In the next chapter I will review, but in the detail required to understand the conclusions, the array of medical and forensic evidence and the findings of the scene, when the focus is not necessarily on the question of the strengthening weight of these, from the perspective of the accusing evidence, since the adequacy of the prosecution's case, so far, and the clichés of the defense's narrative, presented by the defendant, have sufficiently established a convictive verdict. Therefore, the cardinal question will be whether this evidence should assist the defense, by way of instilling doubt, at a level that is sufficient to define it as a "reasonable doubt", perhaps, perhaps, that the scenario in the words of the defendant is possible and plausible. e., whether there is support for the presence of one or more external persons involved in the scene, who injured the deceased and caused his death, and whose actions even led to the defendant's injury, when he wished to come to his aid. It should be emphasized that in the "final" line of defense, as also expressed in the summaries, and after the testimony of the defendant, there is no longer any claim, in the spirit of that initial version, regarding self-defense and assault - an attempted stab - by the deceased against him.
- In addition, we will deal with questions regarding the mechanism of death and its cause (in connection with the claim about the medical treatment given to him) and regarding the nature of his injuries, which can and will also affect the classification of the offense of manslaughter attributed to the defendant.
Forensic and medical evidence
- Most of the evidence that will be reviewed in this chapter originates in the first scene, inside the house. This scene does not have direct evidence, as was found in the second scene in the courtyard of the house, but the conclusions that arise from the analysis of its findings, on the face of it, strengthen the accuser's evidence above, and add to it.
Since, as stated and explained, the critical mass of the evidence brought above has great weight, I will not elaborate beyond what is necessary to understand what is claimed, all the arguments of the parties, and I will not review the testimonies and evidence in detail. The focus will be on the perspective of the defense's version, and whether doubt has been cast into the accusing narrative. I will preface the latter - my conclusion is that while this evidence supports and strengthens the accuser's evidence, - in view of the defense's case - it does not cast any reasonable doubt in this evidentiary fabric.
- Another issue, which will be covered in this chapter, relates to the medical treatment that was given, after the incident, to the deceased, but also to the defendant.
A failure or failure to treat the deceased, when his life could have been saved, can have an impact, in the eyes of the defense, on the determination of the causal connection between the stabbings and the death of the deceased, whereas, the medical treatment of the defendant can and will learn something, through the nature of his injury, about the strength of his line of defense.
- As for the severance of the causal connection between the offense and the death - the enacted hurdle is high, and it is anchored in section 309(1) of the Penal Law. One of the cases in which "a person will be deemed to have caused the death of another person, even if his act or omission was not the frequent cause and was not the only cause of the death of the other" is when "he caused bodily harm requiring medical or surgical treatment and the treatment caused the death of the injured party, and it does not matter if the treatment was erroneous, provided that it was done in good faith and with normal knowledge and skill, for if this was not done, the cause of the damage will not be considered to have caused the death of the injured party."
In order to sever the causal link between the defendant's actions and the result - death, due to poor medical treatment, it must be shown that it was the treatment that led to the death, as the sole and immediate cause, and that the treatment suffered from serious and basic professional defects. It is not enough that erroneous treatment was given, even merely negligent, since that defendant could and should have expected that his actions would require medical treatment that would not be optimal, and even erroneous ( Criminal Appeal 10023/06 Tualbo v. Israel Police, dated December 9, 2009).