Last update - 00:00 27/02/2007
Police still missing pieces in Katzrin murder puzzle
By Eli Ashkenazi, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service
The case file on Roman Zadorov, charged with murdering 13-year-old Tair Rada, includes no psychiatric opinion that would support his confession to having murdered the girl in a psychotic fit induced by childhood sexual abuse. Nor, as far as is known, has his family been questioned about this story.
Rada's body was found December 5, 2006 in the bathroom of her school in the Golan Heights town of Katzrin.
On Monday, Yedioth Ahronoth and Maariv both reported that Zadorov was sexually assaulted by older girls at his school in Ukraine, and that during the murder, he felt that he was exacting revenge.
It appears that Zadorov offered this story during a meeting with a police investigator at which he confessed to the murder a second time. He said the murder stemmed from temporary insanity, but stressed that he did not sexually assault Rada.
Yet despite two confessions, which police claim that Zadorov volunteered, police have been unable to supply missing pieces of the puzzle. For instance, they still do not know where the murder knife is, though they have searched both under a floor that Zadorov was building and in a local dump.
Moreover, if the police were so convinced by the first confession, the question remains of why they needed the second.
The second confession apparently does not appear in the evidence file; it is mentioned only in a memorandum by a police investigator. However, it was not documented in the standard manner: For instance, Zadorov did not sign the memo.
Zadorov's attorneys, David and Galil Spiegel, said that the second confession was a fabrication. Had the police taken Zadorov's story seriously, they said, investigators would have asked his relatives whether they knew of this sexual abuse, or whether they had noticed any change in his behavior at the time that would be consistent with such abuse.
The attorneys also charged that after Zadorov recanted his first confession, the police began applying heavy pressure. "They put him through hell," said one. "He wasn't capable of once again going through the torments that he went through before the [first] confession and the reenactment, and he understood that they were seeking a motive by force. So he gave them one, just so that they would let him alone."
A former police investigator commented: "It's always possible to bring a person under pressure to say what you want to hear."
Prior to publication of the second confession, police had leaked various other motives that Zadorov allegedly gave for the murder. First, it was because Rada cursed him when he refused her request for a cigarette. Then it was that he had a history of angry outbursts, which had led to fights with his brothers.
Another time, the alleged motive was sexual, and police claimed that Zadorov frequently watched pornographic films and corresponded with young girls via his computer. Later, his sister testified that she was his correspondent.
The police, incidentally, deny that the sexual abuse story constitutes a motive, but say it could offer a psychological explanation. The indictment itself suggests no motive.
Attorney Shira Meroz, who represents Rada's parents, dismissed the new motive as unconvincing. Police responded by accusing both Zadorov's and the Radas' lawyers of seeking to influence the judges, and hence the outcome of the trial, via the media.
One new piece of evidence that could prove decisive is a laboratory test of the footprint found on Rada's pants. According to the police, the print bore a high degree of correspondence to Zadorov's shoes.
A 100 percent correspondence could make the other issues marginal. However, the lab results have neither been given to the defense nor announced by the police, so it is not clear whether the degree of correspondence will suffice to constitute solid evidence.
And even if it does, questions will remain as to why no blood was found on Zadorov's shoes "when the entire scene of the murder was a bloodbath," according to a source familiar with the case.
"There is no evidence that connects Zadorov to the scene," declared Alex Peleg, a private detective employed by the Radas. Nor, he said, is there "a satisfactory explanation for the black hair found in Tair Rada's hand - hair that does not belong to Zadorov."