Last update - 00:00 25/09/2006
Tel Aviv court convicts man in 2003 double murder in Hod Hasharon
By Nir Hasson, Haaretz Correspondent
The Tel Aviv District Court on Monday convicted Yaron Senkar in the murder of two men in a Hod Hasharon barber shop in March 2003.
The victims of the murder were barber Tomer Shabbat and Haim Shabi, known to police as a member of the Abergil crime syndicate.
Senkar was convicted on all counts of the indictment - murder, intended murder, double murder, aggravated assault and violation of probation.
Following the conviction, Senkar will be allowed to testify in the trial of brothers Rafi and Moshe Ohana, who allegedly sent him to commit the crimes.
The brothers are charged with murder, intended murder, abetting murder and manslaughter.
Senkar's police testimony incriminated the Ohana brothers, but his attorneys asked the judges to reject his confession, arguing that police sought to turn him into a state witness through the process of the so-called Kinsey Rule, which prohibits an indicted criminal from testifying against his accomplices until after his own trial is concluded.
Senka's conviction was based on a ruling given in pre-trial hearings, in which judges rejected Senkar's request that his police testimony be deemed inadmissible in court.
The judges ruled that his confession, in which he described in detail the double murder he committed in Hod Hasharon, is credible and admissible in court.
During the trial, Senkar's three attorneys requested to be relieved of their duties of representation after he stopped cooperating and asked them to refrain from defending him. The court rejected the request.
In their statement, Judges Bracha Ofir, Miriam Sokolov and Yeshaya Schneller indicated that "this is one of the most serious criminal cases the court has reviewed."
The judges expressed regret that Senkar did not indicate remorse during the police investigation.
"The denials expressed by the defendant today, even if expressed half-heartedly, of all of the heart-rending things expressed to his interrogators, testify to his wavering between cruel emotions leading him to destroy life and sincere feelings of remorse and sorrow."
"You are giving me a death sentence," Senkar told the judges after the ruling. "Take that into consideration. It won't be life imprisonment, it will be a death sentence."
Senkar said that the fact that he will be used as a central witness in a different murder trial worked to his detriment, inasmuch as his own trial was expedited and judges prevented him from voicing his opinions.