Last update - 00:00 24/10/2007
Raphael Angel's two weeks in hell
For two weeks last winter, Raphael Angel, 30, a recent new immigrant from Germany, lived a nightmare: He was abducted, and beaten and humiliated by his captors, who moved him from one hiding place to another in the Jerusalem and Tel Aviv areas. During that time, his only contact with the outside world was the conversations he had with his father about the ransom demanded, and he was under constant watch. Angel was freed only after his father paid his kidnappers $320,000.
It was not until five months after the ordeal that Raphael's father, Michael, went to the police. Yesterday, following a three-month investigation, the Sharon District Police lifted a gag order on the case, after the arrest, several days earlier, of two suspects, Erez Dahan, 43, of Jerusalem, and Yossi Peleg, 48, of Azur. Three additional arrests are expected shortly.
Police detectives say that Angel's story sounded almost made-up. He told them that he immigrated to Israel about a year ago and began working at a Jerusalem computer firm. Among the people he met through his work was the owner of a restaurant in Bat Yam where he occasionally would dine. The suspects, who were also among his new acquaintances, apparently had the impression that Angel was a man of means. In February they scheduled a meeting with him at the restaurant to discuss a business proposition. When Angel arrived, he was persuaded to get into one of the suspect's cars. At that moment, he became a kidnap victim.
Angel was brought to an apartment at 14 Syrkin St. in Givatayim, then to an apartment in Azur and afterward to a house in the abandoned village of Lifta, on the northwestern edge of Jerusalem. "For two weeks they moved him from place to place, beating him, harassing him, extinguishing cigarettes on him, humiliating him and threatening to kill him if his father contacted the police," Police Commander Maurice Horesh, deputy commander of the Sharon District Police, related.
Angel told detectives that after concluding that his captors intended to kill him, he began leaving signs in the various apartments to assist any police search. He told the officers afterward how to find the hair he had torn from his head and hidden in each place.
One of the kidnappers watched him at all times, and when he did attempt to escape once he was attacked by dogs left there to guard him. Angel received little food during his ordeal and in the days immediately following his abduction he did not eat at all.
Michael Angel flew to Israel as soon as he was informed about the kidnapping. Yesterday, at police headquarters, he told how he met with his son's abductors during the two-week period: "At first they asked for less money. We met in a place near Jerusalem. They took the $5,000 I had with me. It was in the middle of the night and they began beating me and telling me not to go to the police. I wasn't scared because I thought only of my son," Angel said yesterday.
At that meeting, the abductors told Angel they wanted $320,000. Angel began getting the ransom together, and followed the abductors' directives to open a bank account in his son's name in Tel Aviv. Raphael was released after two weeks, but had to return two days later to withdraw the cash from the account.
"I told my son when he was released that we'd pay it all, and not to go to the police," Michael Angel said yesterday. The incident ended in February, with no police involvement. Raphael remained in Israel. Fear of retribution kept him from going to the police until about three months ago, when he changed his mind.
"The suspect's father told a friend of his about the incident, who gave the information to a friend of his who was a police officer," Harush related yesterday. "The police officer told us, and that's how we got into the picture." The Sharon District began the investigation simply because it heard about the incident first, even though the crime was not committed in its jurisdiction.
According to Erez Dahan's attorney, Ronen Levy, the entire incident was a civil dispute over a business partnership involving Angel. "In any event there is no connection to my client, and he doesn't understand how his name got mixed up in it. I don't understand why the complainant waited so long to go to the police."
The police said in response that the claims of a civil dispute were investigated "and found to be baseless." Peleg also denied the accusations against him.