Last update - 00:00 08/12/2006
School employee detained in connection to Katzrin girl's murder
By Jack Khoury, Haaretz Correspondent
A gardener at the school in the Golan Heights town of Katzrin has been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the murder Wednesday of 13-year-old Tair Rada.
The hearing of Yisrael Naftali, 40, a gardener at the Ganei Nof school in the town, will be held Wednesday in Acre Magistrate's Court.
The parents of students at the school held a meeting Saturday evening and are threatening to keep their children from school until the murder investigation is completed.
Police sources said a previous suspect, Refael Cohen, will be released in the coming days, as no evidence has yet been found linking him to the murder.
Katzrin residents told Haaretz that Cohen arrived in the town only two months ago. They said Cohen was apparently unemployed and homeless, and slept in a public bomb shelter.
Katzrin residents told Haaretz on Thursday that the suspect, 56-year-old Rafael Cohen, had been known to wander around the area since his arrival in the town in October. Last month, Cohen registered himself in the Interior Ministry as a resident of Katzrin, using the shelter's address as his own.
After Rada was found dead in the bathroom of her high school building, residents reported Cohen's suspicious behavior to police. Cohen, whose police record has been clean for at least 20 years, was arrested Wednesday, classified by police as "eccentric."
The Acre Magistrate's Court on Wednesday extended Cohen's remand, despite Judge Rahamim Tzemah's assertion that "it is difficult to say at this point that the suspicion is well founded." The remand was extended based on the judge's belief that as the case was still in its preliminary stages, "there is enough evidence that apparently connects the suspect to the crime."
During the remand hearing, police presented classified documents that apparently connected Cohen to the murder.
Cohen adamantly denied all the allegations against him, claiming he was nowhere near the scene of the crime at the time of the murder.