TA squatter charged with killing fellow homeless

A homeless man stabbed to death a fellow squatter in an abandoned building on Tel Aviv’s busy Dizengoff Square, following an argument over a miniature sculpture, according to an indictment served in the Tel Aviv District Court on Thursday.

According to the indictment, the accused, 42-year-old Arkady Dorfman, frequented the abandoned building near Pinsker Street for years, spending the nights in a room there.

For around three years before he was fatally stabbed, 50-year-old Dmitry Dikhana also slept in the Dizengoff Street building, although the two men had different rooms.

Dikhana was an artist, the indictment said, who would create miniature models and sculptures from pieces of glass in his room.

On June 3, the night Dikhana died, Dorfman had been sitting in his room, using a computer perched on a footstool and chopping vegetables with a knife.

With him were two friends, Leonid and Kosta, the indictment said.

At some point that evening, the indictment said, Dikhana burst into Dorfman’s room, and slapped him in the face, accusing Dorfman of smashing one of his glass miniatures.

That incident sparked a quarrel between the two men, the indictment said, during which Dikhana came into Dorfman’s room several more times, each time accusing Dorfman of breaking the glass sculpture.

At one point, Dikhana even threw the broken miniature at Dorfman, the indictment alleges.

In response, Dorfman went over to Dikhana and the two began to shout at each other, until Kosta broke up the fight.

Dikhana went back to his room, but then returned to spit at Dorfman, the indictment said.

Allegedly, Dorfman took his knife and stabbed Dikhana in his left thigh.

The six-centimeter-deep stab wound hit an artery, the indictment said, but Dorfman did not stop his attack, stabbing Dikhana once more in his arm.

After the stabbing, Leonid and Kosta called for an ambulance, and took Dikhana out of the building.

Paramedics gave emergency assistance but Dikhana died at the scene from blood loss. Dorfman is charged with manslaughter.

Alongside the indictment, the Tel Aviv District Attorney also filed a request that Dorfman be remanded in custody through the legal proceedings against him.