Last update - 00:00 11/02/2007
Parinyan brothers avoid murder charges in plea bargain deal
By Nir Hasson, Haaretz Correspondent
The prosecution on Sunday reached a plea bargain with the Parinyan brothers, who are suspected of murdering Pinchas Buhbut, according to which brothers won?t face murder charges.
The brothers have been accused of of asking two people - Shimon Almakayis and police officer Tzahi Ben Or - to murder Pinchas Buhbut, a known criminal.
The Zeiler Committee has been discussing the case and will present its final findings this week.
According to the plea bargain, the murder charge will be dropped from the indictment, and Sharon and Oded Parinyan will only be charged with conspiracy to commit a crime. The prosecution and defense will issue a joint plea for a five-year jail term, from which the period of their remand will be subtracted.
The pair will also pay compensation to Buhbut's widow, although the exact sum has not been agreed.
The prosecution signed an additional plea bargain on Sunday with Almakayis, who has been accused of being with Ben Or while he murdered Buhbut. Almakayis had also been charged with murder, but according to the plea bargain, he will be charged of being an accomplice to murder, and both parties will request a 10-year jail term.
Buhbut was murdered in 1999 at the Tel Hashomer Medical Center, while he was recovering from an earlier assassination attempt outside his Ashkelon home. Police suspect Ben Or murdered Buhbut on orders from the Parinyan brothers. The brothers are also suspected of sending agents to to murder Ben Or in Mexico.
The two brothers were captured by police at the end of 2005 and charged with murder. The prosecution said at the time it had enough evidence for a conviction, including taped conversations between Almakayis and Ben Or. Nonetheless, growing concerns within the prosecution that it will not be able to supply proof of murder in court led the prosecution to negotiate a plea bargain with the brothers' attorneys.
Defense attorneys Moshe Sherman and David Yiftach said yesterday "Under these circumstance, we have convinced the prosecution that the evidence is insufficient for a murder conviction and there is also a chance the defendants will be acquitted."
Tel Aviv District Court yesterday demanded clarifications in the plea bargain made with the suspects in Ben Or's murder.
Eran Haya and Gadi Hazan were charged four months ago with killing Ben Or in his Mexico apartment, again under orders from the Parinyans, as well as attacking Ben Or's girlfriend Giovanna Darley. However, the state ran into difficulty proving murder, and the deal signed last week only included aggravated bodily injury to Darley.
The deal included an eight-year sentence for Haya and a four-year sentence for Hazan. The court asked for information about the defendants presence in the room at the time of Ben Or's murder and the time elapsed between the murder and the attack on Darley.