IDF private gets life sentence amid accusations of a cover-up

A military court yesterday sentenced an Israel Defense Forces private to life imprisonment for the murder of an army captain in March 2003. The Northern Command court last month found Private Rolan Yudov guilty of murdering Captain Niv Ya Durban in Tel Aviv, and of attempted car theft.

After the sentencing, Durban's relatives were highly critical of the IDF's former chief education officer, Brigadier General Elazar Stern. According to the family, Stern, who currently heads the army's personnel division, was behind a cover-up of violence and suicides at the military academy for immigrant soldiers where Yudov completed his basic training.

The murder, which appeared to lack motive, had shocked and puzzled investigators.

Durban, who was involved in a sensitive air force project connected to Apache helicopters, participated in the Israel Defense Forces' atudai program (which allows exceptional students to complete university before beginning their army service and then serve in their field) and graduated with honors in aeronautics from the Technion.

On the day of the murder, he returned to Tel Aviv with two female officer friends following a trip to the south of the country. Durban parked his car on Hashoftim Street and was reaching for the glove compartment when Yudov suddenly appeared, brandishing an M-16 rifle and muttering something in Russian. Durban did not even manage to move before Yudov pulled the trigger, shooting his victim in the stomach. Yudov threatened several civilians who were present at the scene before fleeing. Durban died a short time later.

Yudov was apprehended by the police and transferred to the military police. Investigators subsequently established that Yudov had quarreled with his girlfriend and wanted to steal Durban's car so that he could meet her. But material gathered in the military police investigation was later lost - which earned the police some harsh criticism from the military court judges. The court said that the military police treated aspects of the investigation with contempt.

After sentence was pronounced yesterday, Yudov broke down in tears, and expressed remorse for the killing. Yudov immigrated to Israel in 2001, spent one year studying Hebrew at a high school yeshiva and was drafted into the IDF. In court yesterday, it was revealed that prior to the murder, Yudov had twice been convicted of violent crimes and disciplinary violations.

"Even after the sentencing, there are many unanswered questions," said Prof. David Durban, the victim's father. "Who gave a soldier like that a gun? Who enlisted him? One year before Niv Ya was murdered, a soldier who had just recently completed basic training at the same academy - a soldier who is borderline retarded - murdered another conscript. How are these boys drafted?

"A commission of inquiry set up after Niv Ya was murdered described that academy as a ticking timebomb. Brigadier General Stern said he would investigate the academy and the murder, but he has not done so. After a year, we were shown the `investigation' that was carried out. It was a one-page document with nothing more substantial than a description of the murder."

According to Prof. Durban, the inquiry, established by the former head of the personnel division, Major General Gil Regev, collected 600 pages of testimony. Durban claims that during the investigation of the murder, Stern complained that, "the inferior officers come to the Education Corps." The Durban family also claimed that, during the seven-day mourning period for Niv Ya, they were told that officers from the academy were instructed not to visit the family, so as not to divulge any information about the killing.

The IDF has not responded to the family's allegations.

	Rolan Yudov
	Photo by: David Ratner