Last update - 00:00 19/02/2007
Defendants in murder case to be released due to prolonged trial
By Nir Hasson, Haaretz Correspondent
The Be'er Sheva District court on Monday decided to release the two defendants standing trial for the murder of a teenage girl in Ashkelon in 2003 to house arrest, due to foot-dragging in their trial.
Yisrael Ganon and Meir Jano, accused of murdering 16-year-old Shaked Shelahov, have been in custody for about two and a half years, with their remand being extended every three months.
Last month, Supreme Court Justice Edmond Levy refused to extend their remand and stated that the defendants should not be required to pay the price for failures within the legal system.
Levy instructed the district court to find an alternative for their remand, and the district court, in turn, decided to release the two to full house arrest with strict conditions.
The district court on Monday decided to outfit the defendants with electronic bracelets and assign two people to watch the defendants at any time.
Each defendant must now pay NIS 50,000 in bail, and a third party will have to deposit an additional sum of NIS 20,000 in bail. An injunction will be issued preventing the two from leaving the country.
Ganon and Jano's release will be delayed by a further 24 hours to allow the prosecution to appeal the court's decision.
Shelahov was murdered in Ashkelon in July 2003 while riding in a car with two friends. Gunfire from an overtaking car killed Shelahov and injured her two friends.
At the end of an investigation into the shooting, police concluded that Ganon and Jano were the gunmen and intended to kill members of a rival gang, as part of Ashkelon gang wars for control over illegal sand-mining in the area. The two intended victims were indeed in the car shortly before Shelahov entered it.
The defendants' trial is still far from completion, due in part to congestion in the legal system, but mostly due to the fact that most of the indictment is based on testimony by Yaron Senkar, who was tried in a separate trial at the same.
Under a process known as the Kinsey Rule, Senkar, as an indicted criminal, was prohibited from testifying against his accomplices until after his own trial is concluded. In October 2006, the High Court of Justice cancelled the 30-year-old procedure following a petition by the prosecution, which feared Ganon and Jano's release.
According to the prosecution, Ganon and Jano pose a high risk, both as flight risks and due to their desire to harm witnesses.
Nonetheless, Justice Levy decreed that the defendants' right to freedom surpasses the risk posed by them, and that the two should not pay the price for failures within the legal system, especially seeing as their trial will probably last "many more months, if not more."