Last update - 00:00 29/08/2007
Doctor indicted over attempt to have daughter's fiance killed
By Jack Khoury and Fadi Eyadat, Haaretz Correspondents
Haifa District prosecutors indicted on Wednesday Dr. Salim Safia, a resident of the northern village of Kfar Yasif, of attempting to hire a hit man to kill his daughter's fiance.
The indictment stated that Safia, 54, believed the fiance, Ramzi Safia, had "insulted his wife's honor."
The prosecutors told Haifa District Court that the accused's daughter had refused to break off the engagement to Ramzi Safia, a distant relative and lawyer by trade, when he told her to.
Police started investigating the affair a few months ago, following Salim Safia's suspected involvement in a series of criminal acts. A bomb was placed underneath Ramzi Safia's car, shots were fired in his direction and his family home in Kfar Yasif was set alight.
After these incidents the engaged couple fled to an apartment at a secret location.
The indictment charges Salim Safia with attempting to persuade an Acre resident, Rami Abed Elhadi, to kill Ramzi Safia for $30,000 in addition to $5,000 in advance.
Abed Elhadi reported to the police, who used him as an informant. The police then persuaded him to put the accused in contact with a police agent who pretended to be a hit man called Yusri Abu Salam.
At a meeting between the three men, Salim Safia offered Salam $35,000 for murdering his daughter's fiance, only to be paid 24 hours after he had been shown the man's dead body.
During the same meeting the accused gave the so-called hit man two pictures of Ramzi Safia so he could identify his target. The agent asked for a few days to think about the offer and the accused told him he had to execute the murder within a month, and if not he would turn to other sources.