The "Overview" Evidence and the Undisputed Facts
- In order to focus the discussion, and to delineate the points in dispute, we will preface and describe the sequence of events, as it became clear from the evidence that was submitted, the statements that were given, and the testimonies heard in the proceeding. A significant part of the tractate is not in dispute, inter alia, because it is "neutral," and is also consistent with the narrative presented by the defense. In doing so, we will review the main arguments of the parties, and the questions that require clarification and decision.
- According to the fabric of evidence that was placed before us - at the relevant time, the deceased lived in the grandmother's house - you and another cousin, Mor Dadon. The night before the incident, he went out to spend time with his cousins, Daniel and Eliran Sarahsher, in the center of the country, and they returned him to his grandmother's house in the early hours of the morning. A few hours later, on the morning of the incident, Mor went to work, and the grandmother also left her house for various errands. It was a sabbatical day, during which the elections for the Knesset were held. Before leaving the house, the grandmother spoke to the deceased, who was awake, sitting in bed, and fiddling with his mobile phone, while after she left - from the back door of the house (towards the field), she met the defendant who arrived at the scene, kissed her on the head and said that he would wait for her until she returned. At this point, apparently in the video of the nearby security cameras, the defendant was seen walking back and forth in the courtyard of the grandmother's house. A few minutes later, the defendant turned to the back door (from the direction of the pergola, the one from which the grandmother had left minutes earlier), which was indisputably not locked at the time, and entered the house. There, the parties disagree about what happened.
- According to the accuser, after entering the house, and under circumstances unknown to her, the defendant stabbed the deceased many times and caused him severe injuries. On the other hand, according to the defense, the defendant heard voices coming from the house, and when he entered the house, he saw a number of people attacking the deceased. According to the same version, the defendant tried to help the deceased, and in the process, he was cut from a Japanese knife, which was in the hands of one of the assailants. As he left the house, in the direction of the pergola, the defendant noticed the deceased lying on the ground, and when he knelt down towards him, to check on his condition, they found a spray-killer. He tried to straighten the deceased's legs and improve his posture, when the neighbor, Y.A., called out to him to leave him and called rescue forces to the scene. This is a neighbor who knows the defendant and the deceased, and identifies them. The defendant, whose hands were bleeding from the cuts, felt confused and blurred, got up from the deceased, walked this way and that, and left the scene through the house, towards the front of the main street.
The accuser claims that after the defendant left the house, in the direction of the pergola, he knelt in the direction of the deceased, and continued to stab him in the upper body, so that in fact he completed the "work" he had begun inside the house, and made sure that he was dead. The phone calls of the neighboring witness Y.A., who was a witness to what happened, were submitted as evidence on behalf of the accuser, in which he can be heard calling for rescue forces, reporting a stabbing incident, and calling on the defendant (Maor, whom he knew by name) to leave the deceased and cease his actions. Another witness to those critical seconds, at the scene outside the house, is M.A., an air conditioning worker who dealt with a malfunction in the cold room on the roof of the house next door (Y.A.). He does not know the defendant, or the deceased, and happened to be on the scene. The aforementioned reported, in retrospect, that he saw short segments of the incident, for a few seconds, during which he noticed a person (whom he did not know and did not recognize), making a movement similar to opening a knife (which he did not see clearly), kneeling over the deceased and making repeated stab movements towards the upper part of his body. The versions of the two, including the calls to the rescue forces, will be discussed at length below.
- As he ran up the street, with his hands covered in blood, they noticed the defendant, Mrs. T.Z. - An employee who was caring for Y.A.'s mother, and yes, H.Z. - The neighbor. A United Hatzalah volunteer who arrived at the scene began to give him first aid. Seeing the blood and cuts dripping from them, the aforementioned bandaged the defendant's hands, assuming that he had been called to treat him, and not someone else. A few minutes later, an ambulance arrived at the scene, and the defendant was taken to the scene for further medical treatment. At the same time, rescue forces continued to flow to the scene - MDA and police. Some of them worked to find the knife and other evidence, in the bins on the street and under parked vehicles, others worked to collect testimonies on the spot, and there were also those who traced the source of the blood, from the spot where the defendant was found to the yard of the grandmother's house. At the same time, one of the forces, who had arrived at the back of the house, was directed by the neighbor Y.A. to the second scene, where the deceased was lying on the ground, bleeding and in a very serious medical condition. At this point, many forces were directed to the scene, and the picture of the incident changed completely - with the understanding that the defendant, who was treated with his hands at the front of the street, was not necessarily the injured person, or the victim, for whom they came, and it is possible that the second injured person (the deceased) was the victim in question. In any case, the latter was treated at the scene and transferred to Soroka Hospital for further treatment, where during the drive there, he continued to receive treatment and his condition continued to deteriorate, until he was pronounced dead, not long after arriving at the hospital.
- After the evacuation of the wounded, forensic evidence began to be collected from the various scenes. From the scene inside the house, which was full of forensic investigation (a substance suspected of blood), samples were taken, traces were examined and the relevant evidence was photographed. Two mobile phones, a Samsung and an iPhone, were also seized at the scene, and they were taken for fingerprint examination and content testing. At the outer scene, a knife, stained with blood, found near the deceased, was seized, and DNA and fingerprints were sampled. Later, the items worn and shoes worn by the defendant were taken for examination, and forensic reports were submitted in relation to the various scenes, as well as the findings of an additional civil hearing sampled there.
The various findings and the conclusions derived from them will be presented below, in the chapters of the analysis and the legal discussion.
- In order to answer the question - whether it was the defendant who stabbed the deceased to death, and if so, whether it was done with the intention of killing him, we will relate to a number of points, the timeline, the evidence, the witnesses, and the circumstances that characterized each of them:
The first relates to the relationship between the defendant and the deceased, and to the existence of a possible motive for the act. We will discuss the motive, prima facie, of the defendant to harm the deceased, or vice versa, as well as the defendant's state of mind when he arrived at the scene of the incident. To this end, we will examine the versions of the family members of the two, and those close to them, and we will try to trace a possible motive for the act, early signs, including threats, and strained relationships. We will also relate to the date of the incident - taking into account that, coincidentally or not, this is the birthday of the deceased uncle, who, during his "shiva", stabbed the father of the deceased - an offense for which he was convicted and for which he served a prison sentence, as appears from the various testimonies. In addition, the defendant's actions on the morning of the incident were traced - from his security camera footage, before he entered the house, from the direction of the yard, as well as from the testimonies of those who saw him nearby.