Prosecutors have filed an appeal in the Supreme Court after five murder suspects walked free earlier this month, because police refused to identify key witnesses at their trial. The justices are scheduled to consider the case in two weeks.

At the trial of the five defendants in Tel Aviv District Court, the judge ordered police to reveal the identity of the witnesses in view of the crucial nature of their testimony. The police refused, and the court acquitted the suspects.

The defendants are charged with the July 2005 murder of Khader Daka, who allegedly mediated in a dispute between the owners of Benny Hadayag, a fish restaurant in the old Tel Aviv port, and a Gaza fisherman.

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According to the charge sheet, the suspects are Jaffa-based hit men hired by the restaurant owner, Benny Raba, to kill Daka. All of them save one are already serving jail sentences for prior convictions.

The prosecution charged Izzat Hamad, head of Jaffa's largest crime gang, with murdering Daka because of his arbitration in the dispute.

The prosecution and police signed an agreement for the state to pay tens of thousands of dollars to two witnesses, although they were not categorized as state witnesses. One witness received $150,000, and the second, who remained anonymous, was promised NIS 120,000.

The unprecedented agreements followed a series of serious crimes in Jaffa that remained unsolved, as witnesses were afraid to testify.

The charge sheet says Hamad met Daka and his cousin Aslam Daka on July 16, 2005. Hamad and four friends attacked and bound the two and put them into the boot of a car. Daka and his cousin managed to escape, but the assailants chased them, shooting and killing Daka. Aslam escaped.

Police arrested Aslam on suspicion of murdering Daka, but he denied being involved in the affair. Six months later, however, he suddenly agreed to testify, demanding $150,000 in return. After consulting with the prosecution, the police agreed. A few days later another man said he had witnessed the murder from his balcony. The police agreed to pay him NIS 120,000 for testifying against Hamad.

The prosecution decided that solving the Daka murder justified "special measures" such as the payments for the testimonies.

Hamad's organization is believed to be behind numerous violent crimes, and police hope the defendants' conviction would destroy it.

Police paid Aslam $10,000 after he gave them his statement and the remainder when he finished testifying in court. The police recommended he be allowed to carry arms, buy a bulletproof car and receive a business license.

The prosecution agreed that the second witness remain anonymous. The prosecution said the money was given to help the witnesses protect themselves, in lieu of a witness protection program.

The second witness received about half of the agreed sum, as he is still testifying. But following a court order to reveal the identities of all three prosecution witnesses, the two have left Jaffa and gone into hiding.

The defendants' attorneys, David Yiftah and Moshe Sherman, say there is a conspiracy against the defendants. How come there were no witnesses for six months, and suddenly in the same week two witnesses, seemingly unrelated, materialize, and both receive handsome sums for their testimony, they ask.

They say they cannot prove the connection between the two due to the immunity deal.

The Tel Aviv District Court judges accepted the defense lawyers' demand to reveal some of the testimony and witnesses' identities.

The judges said they could not rule out the defense's conspiracy claim. One of the witnesses, whom the prosecution wished to keep anonymous, is an undercover police agent in Jaffa. The prosecution argued that exposing him would put his life in danger.

After the court ordered the witness identities revealed, the prosecution said it could not continue the trial - and the defendants' were acquitted.

"When an eyewitness and a complainant who are not party to the crime receive money for their testimony, it's the beginning of the end of criminal law as we know it," says Yiftah.

Yiftah and Sherman say the Supreme Court must rule that the testimony of a witness who was paid is inadmissible.

Other jurists agree. "Buying witnesses is wrong," says Professor Emanuel Gross, a professor of criminal law at Haifa University. "The law forbids paying money or something like it for testimony. If witnesses need to be protected, the state must see to it and find them lodging and employment. They don't have to receive money. The state must ask what it would do if a defendant paid its witnesses to testify in his favor."

The Justice Ministry commented: "The need to fight organized crime requires unusual measures. The police and prosecution did not pay for the testimony but attempted to compensate the witnesses for the way their testimony would affect the rest of their lives. The payment was intended to ensure the witnesses' safety and to make up for their limited freedom as long as their life is in danger."