The Jerusalem Police District and the Shin Bet security agency have solved one of the more complicated cases they have encountered in recent years: the January 2019 murder of Tamar and Yehuda Kaduri in the capital's Armon Hanatziv neighborhood.
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The suspect, 34-year-old Hebron resident Wasim a-Sayed, has admitted and re-enacted both the Kaduris' murder and his attempted murder of 15-year-old Hadar Bezalel just one day prior. He further admitted to the murder of a foreign worker from Moldova and the attempted murder of two additional foreign workers.
A-Sayed is set to be indicted next week.
The suspect was arrested on the night he killed the Moldovan citizen in Jerusalem's Arnona neighborhood thanks to the vigilance of Border Police officers who detained a-Sayed in the Neve Yaakov area of northern Jerusalem on suspicion he had entered Israel illegally.
After a search of a-Sayed's belongings revealed a knife in his bag, he was arrested and taken for questioning by the Shin Bet. A forensic examination found the blood of two foreign workers – one of whom he had murdered and the other he had seriously wounded on the weapon.
In the three years since the Kaduris' murder and up until the killing of Moldovan citizen Ivan Tarnovski on March 22, a-Sayed had been held in administrative detention by the Shin Bet. Just one week after his release, a-Sayed murdered Tarnovski and seriously wounded his roommate.
Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit approved the use of administrative detention due to intelligence indicating a-Sayed identified with the ideology of the Islamic State and posed a security threat.
During his investigation, a-Sayed admitted he made a decision to murder a Jew in accordance with his identification with the Islamic State. A-Sayed was familiar with the Armon Hanatziv neighborhood as he had robbed homes and broken into cars in the area.
He said he had approached Bezelal in the stairwell on a Wednesday and attempted to slash her throat, but the girl's raised collar protected her. She fought back and shouted for help, prompting a-Sayed to flee.
A-Sayed returned to the neighborhood the following day and once again tried to execute his plan. In the evening, he noticed Yehuda Kaduri bringing his shopping bags home from his car. He then entered the Kaduris' home. While Kaduri continued to retrieve the bags from his car, a-Sayed scanned the Kaduris' apartment and noticed Tamar Kaduri in one of the rooms. He stabbed Tamar to death with a knife and then waited in the room. Kaduri then returned to his apartment and sat down to eat. When Kaduri got up to use the bathroom, a-Sayed attacked him and slashed his throat.
Questioned by police earlier this month, a-Sayed re-enacted the Kaduris' murder, including the method he used to murder the couple, which he said he learned from watching Islamic State videos online.
After murdering the Kaduris, a-Sayed spent the night in their apartment. He washed his bloody hands in the sink and left the home, locking it from the outside. He took with him a keychain, which along with the bloody gloves and the murder weapon he disposed of in an unknown area.
The Kaduris' bodies were discovered that Sunday night when their relatives contacted police to say the couple had not answered their calls. Firefighters who broke into the apartment through the balcony discovered their lifeless bodies.
The Israel Police invested great efforts to solve the case, including obtaining testimonies from around 600 witnesses and detaining and questioning some 20 people, including the Kaduris' children, who at one point were suspected of the crime.
During the investigation, police succeeded in retrieving DNA from a footprint at the scene of the crime. The footprint was unique in that it had been left by a brand of shoe manufactured in Hebron and popular in the Palestinian territories. However, as the DNA was not in the system, the genetic material did not help identify a suspect in the case.
Upon his release from administrative detention, a-Sayed returned to the Arnona neighborhood to murder again. When he saw Tarnovski's apartment was open, he entered and stabbed them both before fleeing on foot to Neve Yaakov, where he was arrested by Border Police officers.
The suspicions of police investigators who arrived at the Arnona neighborhood were raised when they realized they had seen the murder method, the killer's actions, and the escape before. The Shin Bet joined the investigation and quickly determined the knife used in the killing was the same knife that had been used in the Kaduris' murder. Upon raiding a-Sayed's Hebron home, security forces discovered the family was in possession of a storage room. In that room, they discovered Islamic State religious tests and a backpack identical to the one that had been used in the Kaduris' murder.
The backpack contained shoes that matched the footprint left behind by the Kaduris' killer wrapped in a bag. A forensic text revealed the shoes to be the same ones used by the killer. Soon after, a-Sayed admitted to the Kaduris' murder, Tarnovski's murder, and the attempted murder of Bezalal and Tarnovski's roommate.
Questioned by police, a-Sayed provided details that would only have been known to the killer and detailed the sequence of events. The investigation revealed he had acted alone out of support for the Islamic State, to which he had sworn allegiance in the past.
He told investigators: "I did it for me and for Allah."
On Twitter, Defense Minister Benny Gantz praised the security forces for their work in solving the crime.
"I congratulate the police and the Shin Bet security agency that got their hands on the vile killer of Yehuda and Tamar Kaduri, who were murdered three years ago in Jerusalem's Armon Hanatziv neighborhood. We will pursue all those who harm Israeli citizens and we will bring them to justice – anytime, at any hour, and anywhere.
Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion said: "I congratulate the security forces who got their hands on the murderer of the Kaduris, a vile murder that took place three years ago and shocked the entire country."
Otzma Yehudit party chairman Itamar Ben-Gvir, who had served as the Kaduris' attorney, said: "The truth has been revealed, and the family's cries are heard clearly today. Unfortunately, I am not surprised that this murder had a nationalist background. The police acted incorrectly when they first suspected the family members and only then looked for ulterior motives.
"The family members were exemplary children. We should regret that the police tried to sully them. At any rate, I will continue to act in the Knesset to legislate the death penalty for terrorists. The Kaduri family's killer should sit in an electric chair."
Attorneys Shai Levy and Guy Maimon who represented the Kaduri family said: "The Kaduri family has had a very difficult day. The family is shattered. Their unnecessary and difficult arrests under heavy suspicion [by the police] have left their mark on the family. The police's apology to the family members does not lessen the pain and suffering they experienced. Nevertheless, we congratulate the security forces on solving [the crime].
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