Last update - 00:00 25/06/2007
Two men shot to death in J'lem apartment; cops hold suspect
By Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondent
Two men were shot to death in their Jerusalem apartment Sunday. A suspect was arrested at the scene within minutes after the shootings. All three men are believed to work as security guards for the same company. The suspect was described as a man in his 20s who has a criminal record for drug trafficking. Police believe the victims had a long-running financial dispute with the suspect, who confessed to the murders during questioning but is not cooperating with the investigation and has refused to provide details about the disagreement between the parties.
According to the initial investigation, the suspect did not come to the victims' apartment with the gun. Police still do not know who owned the weapon and whether it came from the security company where the three men worked.
Because the process of identifying the victims and notifying their families was not completed by press time last night, Jerusalem police did not allow publication of their names.
A neighbor from the victims' apartment building, on Bar Yohai Street in the Katamonim neighborhood in the south of the capital, called police after hearing gunshots at about 5 P.M. Sunday.
Two officers on routine motorcycle patrol in the nearby neighborhood of Talpiot answered the call. One of them, Advanced Staff Sergeant Major Ido Katzir, described the events: "We arrived within two to three minutes of receiving the dispatch. Neighbors told us the shooting was on the top floor. We knocked on the door. At first there was no response. We knocked again, louder, and yelled, 'open up, police!' The door opened. We saw a man lying on the floor and realized that this was the scene of the incident. I saw that the man who opened the door was carrying a drawn pistol. I overcame him and removed the pistol from his belt. My partner rushed to handcuff him."
Attempts to resuscitate the victims failed, and EMTs pronounced them dead on the scene.
Dozens of neighbors gathered at the entrance to the apartment building.
"I heard the shots, but didn't think anything of it," neighbor Daniel Ben Yaakov said. "After I heard them I looked left and right and didn't see anything. It's almost like America here, people don't know their neighbors."
Moriah district police commander Shuki Ziso said the suspect told detectives there was a financial dispute between him and the victims, "but at present we have no further details about it. Currently we are examining the gun found in the apartment and attempting to determine what it was doing in the apartment and who it belongs to."
Katamonim was, particularly in the 1970s, a notoriously crime-ridden neighborhood. Ziso said no connection should be drawn between the neighborhood's past history and Sunday's murder. "This was a localized, specific incident, apparently related to a financial disagreement among three people. It's a decent neighborhood where working-class people live."
A police source confirmed yesterday that the suspect was not cooperating with the investigation. "He isn't willing to say exactly what went on there. He admits to killing them and claims it was over a money. The police had no prior knowledge about a dispute between the parties, and none of them had over lodged a police complaint over it."