Palestinian-Islamic State three time murderer indicted three years later

A Palestinian associated with ISIS was indicted on Monday in the Jerusalem District Court for three murders, attempted murder and terrorism, with his attacks on three victims dating back to 2019, but which were only solved recently.

Last week, the police announced they had cracked the old cases and that the alleged murderer was Wasim a-Sayed, 34 from Hebron, who was arrested just on March 22 as part of the investigation into the murder of Moldovan migrant worker Ivan Tarnovski in Jerusalem.

But what is most bizarre about the case is that he had been in an extended period of almost three years of administrative detention regarding his ISIS connection until his mid-March release, but even the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) had no clue that he could be tied to the earlier murders.

Rather, at the time he was being held over general concerns of incitement and that he might deteriorate into becoming more dangerous in the future.

It was only after studying the latest murder of Tarnovski and noticing common patterns with the earlier attempted murder of teenager Hadar Betzalel in January 2019 and of the murders of elderly couple Yehuda and Tamar Kaduri in their Armoz Hanatziv Jerusalem apartment that same month.

This means that, if guilty, Sayed went on an aspiring murder spree in 2019, was arrested, and then immediately returned to his murder spree upon his release last month.

Reactions to the news last week were mixed.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz tweeted congratulations to the police and the Shin Bet saying they succeeded in seizing, “the abominable murderer of the couple Yehuda and Tamar Kaduri, who were murdered three years ago in the Armon Hanatziv neighborhood of Jerusalem.”

“We will pursue anyone who harms the citizens of Israel and bring them to justice — anytime, at any hour, anywhere,” he added.

Public Security Minister Omer Bar Lev also viewed cracking the case as a sign of the Shin Bet and law enforcement’s ingenuity in the face of a complex case.

But other officials slammed law enforcement for failing to see the evidence and murderer under their noses and in their custody.

Likud MK Shlomo Karai even called for an independent probe of the police and Shin Bet failure to grasp their mistake earlier.

Some family members of the prior victims were also incensed that it had taken so long to solve the cases, especially when the alleged murderer had been in custody all along.

Responding, law enforcement has pointed out that hundreds of Palestinians may be in administrative detention at a time with many of them held for general incitement concerns, and not because of any concrete evidence of a past violent crime.

Many more Palestinians, sometimes thousands in a year, are indicted for different levels of violent crimes.

According to law enforcement, Sayed did not fit into their matrix of identifying factors for the 2019 crimes based on what they knew at the time, and only the new information from the Tarnovski murder changed that.

When the Kaduris were killed, the police even arrested some of their family members as potential suspects motivated for financial reasons.

For example, the Kaduri murders, at the time, were believed to be carried out for criminal purposes because their residence had been locked and the killer stole money from them.

It was only after catching Sayed illegally crossing through a border fence separating the east and west sides of Jerusalem that police questioned him sufficiently to connect him to the Tarnovski murder to and to see similarities to the earlier incidents.

For one, law enforcement was able to compare video footage of the two incidents and, even without being able to get a perfect facial recognition identification, there were enough physical common points to lead to a breakthrough.

Law enforcement also found shoes in Sayed’s residence which could be tied to the Kaduri murders.

In addition, the Kaduris and Tarnovski were all executed in a brutal ISIS-style manner, slitting their throats.

Sayed eventually allegedly reenacted each of the crimes he is accused of for law enforcement.

Source: JP