Last update - 00:00 23/09/2007
Man escapes murder conviction by 'saving the court's precious time'
By Eli Ashkenazi, Haaretz Correspondent
The Nazareth District Court on Sunday sentenced Ivan Korotiev to 20 years in prison for manslaughter, after pleading him down from murder in a surprising plea bargain deal.
37-year-old Korotiev of Tiberias was originally charged with murdering his friend with a hammer. The court explained the unusual plea bargain by saying that the suspect's promise of an immediate confession had saved the court precious time.
On January 6, 2007, Korotiev and his friend were arguing about hardware tools. During the argument, Korotiev hit the victim with a hammer, among other tools, and killed him. Korotiev then took the victim's wallet and cellular phone and threw them into a nearby garbage can along with the hammer.
The prosecution in the case admitted that there had been "a certain evidentiary difficulty" in proving murder, but that was not the reason behind agreeing to the plea reduction. In fact, it had been the defendant's "immediate confession, before the police as well as the court" that had motivated the prosecution to sign the deal. "The defendant saved precious time for the court by removing the need for presentation of evidence," the prosecution wrote.
The judges wrote in their ruling that "the court usually accepts plea bargains; rejecting a deal would be unusual." They added that "at the end of the day, the defendant was convicted of manslaughter by his own admission, thus saving precious court time; he took responsibility for his actions and expressed remorse. It is evident that he understands the severity of his actions."
The judges added that 20 years in prison was the maximum sentence they could have handed down under the circumstances.