Mystery surrounds youth's fatal fall - Haaretz

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Last update - 23:07 23/10/2007

Mystery surrounds youth's fatal fall

By Roni Singer-Heruti

Police arrested the wife of a man suspected of murdering his young male lover, whose body was found two weeks ago in the yard of a Netanya Hotel.

Avraham and Carmela Cohen, of Netanya, are suspected of being involved in the murder of a 21-year-old soldier, who fell to his death from his window in the Carmel Hotel.

"I know my parents are innocent, and I will fight to prove their innocence," the Cohens' son said yesterday.

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Investigators said much of the affair was still shrouded in mystery, but they were now suspecting that the woman was involved in pushing her husband's 21-year-old lover to his death. The wife says she wasn't even there at the time.

Cohen, 52, was arrested on suspicion of murder immediately after the young man's body was found on the ground outside the hotel. Cohen, who owns one of Netanya's oldest barber shops, was standing near the fatally injured man weeping. He told police it was all a tragic accident.

Cohen had been having an affair with the young man, and spent the night before his lover's death with him at the hotel. Cohen and his wife had separated over the affair, but had reconciled and were planning to get back together again on that very day.

"Mother and father have been married for 30 years," said the Cohens' son, who asked that his name not be released. "They lived together, but mother knew father had relationships with men. Father's a homosexual and everyone knew it."

Carmela told the police that she came to her husband's hotel room at about 6:30 A.M. that morning, to help him pack before the movers arrived to move his things back home.

"On the morning it all happened, they were supposed to open a new leaf," said the couple's attorney, Merav Greenberg.

Cohen, who was in the shower with his lover when his wife walked in, was surprised and shouted at her to get out. He did not tell her who was with him. The wife said that the room was dark, and that she heard running water. She said she waited around the hotel for a while and then walked home.

One of the neighbors testified that she had waved to him at about 7:30 A.M.. She said she went home, and a little later heard about the tragic incident.

Cohen told the police that at about 7:30 A.M. the movers knocked on the door, and perhaps the lover panicked, thinking the wife had returned. He said that he had looked away, and when he looked back he suddenly saw his lover hanging on the window sill.

"What are you doing?" he said he cried, and then saw the young man lose his grip and fall, Greenberg said.

She said perhaps the young man had been smoking on the window ledge, or was hiding and slipped when he heard the knocks on the door - thinking Carmela had returned - and fell.

But police were not convinced by this story, and arrested him on suspicion of pushing the man to his death.

In his initial interviews with the police, Cohen denied having anything to do with the young man, then lied about his relationship with him. A lie detector test indicated that some of his answers were lies. It also transpired that after the young man's death was announced, Cohen rushed to his room, moved things around, then flushed the young man's wallet and cellphone down the toilet.

On Sunday, after a court hearing at which Cohen's remand was extended for the fourth time, police asked his wife to accompany them for further questioning. They subsequently arrested her for 24 hours.

"The police are shooting in all directions, checking every possible suspicion and motive," Greenberg said. "They don't have a clear direction yet."

Both husband and wife insist that the death was the result of an accident, but police sources familiar with the investigation said the detectives had gathered sufficient evidence to support a murder, or at least a manslaughter, charge.

It is not clear why Cohen would have pushed his lover out of the window, if indeed he did. The police are checking whether Carmela had a motive to harm the young man, after finding that he spent the night with her husband the night before the two were getting back together.

They are also checking whether both husband and wife had pushed the young man to his death.

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