GIST: "Possibly ending a 10-year saga that has rocked
the country and the Justice Ministry, with calls to suspend State
Prosecutor Shai Nitzan because of his handling of the case, the Supreme
Court on Wednesday upheld the conviction of Roman Zadorov for the 2006
murder of eighth-grader Tair Rada. The majority’s 2-1 vote
upholding the conviction came despite a dissenting vote from Justice
Yoram Danziger and the skepticism expressed by the justices about the
state prosecution’s case in October 2014 at a hearing on the appeal of
the lower court conviction. In December 2006, Rada was found
stabbed to death in a bathroom stall at the Nofei Golan school in
Katzrin on the Golan Heights. Zadorov, the school custodian, was
arrested less than a week later and in September 2010 was found guilty
of 13-year-old Rada’s murder. The case captivated the media and
public. It was a tragic, small-town murder that, from the beginning,
was dogged by rumors, including that local teenagers had killed Rada
and the town or teachers had covered it up, finding an easy fall guy in
Zadorov, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union. He was sentenced by the Nazareth District Court to life in prison plus two years for obstruction of justice. But it turned out that this was just the beginning of the story. In
March 2013, the Supreme Court ordered the lower court to reexamine
certain evidence, including a forensic expert’s opinion (a former top
FBI official) about bloody shoe prints found at the scene, and another
expert’s analysis of the murder weapon and the injuries to Rada’s head. The
new evidence had indicated that the bloody shoe prints, which the
lower court had connected with Zadorov, were not shoe prints at all. Further,
the new evidence had indicated that the murder weapon was a serrated
knife, or a knife with multiple cutting edges, and not the single
cutting edge knife that the lower court had connected with Zadorov. Despite
the Supreme Court’s directive to reexamine the evidence, the lower
court rejected both of these new arguments, standing by its original
findings. In February 2014, the Nazareth District Court upheld
its earlier conviction of Zadorov for Rada’s murder and convicted him a
second time. The current appeal – Zadorov’s second to the Supreme Court – is his last chance to appeal, following the second conviction. The
lower court said in its second conviction of Zadorov that it preferred
the expert opinion offered by the prosecution at the trial; for,
unlike the defense’s expert, it had examined Rada’s body. The
lower court chided the defense on the shoe prints issue, preferring the
prosecution’s expert’s take, and expressing disapproval of the defense
expert’s evasive answers under cross-examination. Zadorov’s
lawyers, including renowned lawyer Avigdor Feldman and Elkana List,
slammed the state and the lower court for ignoring that another
high-ranking government expert came out against the state’s forensic
conclusions.........(Majority justices (Amit
and Zylbertal) agreed with Danziger that there were problems with the
forensic evidence, specifically the footprints and the knife. But they
found reasonable explanations for the confusion surrounding that
evidence that resolved their doubts, which, together with the other
evidence, compelled them to uphold the conviction. Although the
court found other issues more decisive, the dispute between government
experts about forensic evidence spilled out into the open in an
unusually public way, with allegations surfacing that (State prosecutor) Nitzan blocked
Dr. Maya Forman-Resnick, a government expert opposing the state’s
conclusions, from promotion to a higher government job. That
dispute led to a lawsuit by Forman-Resnick against the state
prosecution. Justice Ministry oversight czar Hila Gristol criticized
Nitzan’s role in the case as well as the conduct of the state
prosecutors, who she said cherry- picked portions of the government
experts’ reports that helped their case, while trying to suppress other
portions..........Another
issue raised by the defense was that the lower court had unjustifiably
ignored the possibility that Zadorov made a false confession, a
phenomenon that the courts recognize. When the Supreme Court
originally sent the case back to the lower court, it had already said
Zadorov’s first conviction was based on confessions he had made to
interrogators, a police translator, a jailhouse informant and during a
reenactment of the crime, which justices said “were found to contain
lies, manipulations and fabrications.” Rada’s parents, Ilana and
Shmuel, became famous in Israel after the murder, with Ilana being
outspoken about her doubts of Zadorov’s guilt, while Shmuel said he
believed police had caught the right man. Both on Wednesday
after the Supreme Court’s ruling and at Zadorov’s second conviction,
Ilana said she was still convinced that the state had incorrectly
pinned the blame on Zadorov and was ignoring the search for the real
killer. Feldman, Zadorov’s lead lawyer, said they would request a
broader panel of the Supreme Court to rule on the issue, possibly
creating one more round in the saga. While such an appeal by
Feldman and Zadorov would have some support because Danziger dissented,
it is unusual for criminal cases to get such rehearings, which are
usually reserved for constitutional issues."
The entire decision can be found at:
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Supreme-Court-upholds-conviction-of-Roman-Zadarov-for-2006-murder-of-teenager-Tair-Rada-438164
Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
I
have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses
several thousand posts. The search box is located near the bottom of
the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this
powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and
myself get more out of the site.
The
Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible
years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr.
Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of
Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic"
section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It
can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html
Harold Levy: Publisher;
The Charles Smith Blog
