The Haifa district attorney filed indictments in the Haifa District and
Magistrate’s Courts on Monday, charging three men in connection with a
hit-and-run accident in the northern city last month in which two pedestrians
were seriously injured.
Moran Maron, 23, allegedly drove the car even
though he had previously been disqualified and did not have an insurance policy
for his car.
He was charged alongside two men alleged to have been
passengers at the time of the accident – 21-year-old Anton Asfur and 23-year-old
Roget Gallianos. All three men are from Haifa.
An elderly woman and her
daughter were abandoned on the sidewalk after being hurt in the accident, and
Haifa police later revealed that the perpetrators had fled before removing the
license plates from their car in order to make it difficult to locate
them.
According to the indictment, the accident occurred on Aliya Street
in Haifa on April 21, when Maron swerved his car onto the sidewalk and smashed
into 83- year-old wheelchair-user Fanya Feinziberg and her 62- year-old
daughter, Larisa Goldenberg.
The indictment said that immediately before
the accident, Moran had swerved into the oncoming lane to bypass a second car as
it turned from an access road.
Allegedly, in doing so, Moran blocked that
second car from turning, and damaged it.
Moran then continued driving,
mounting the curb and slamming into the two pedestrians as Goldenberg pushed her
mother in a wheelchair.
Immediately after the accident, the three
defendants allegedly sped off without getting out of the car.
The two
women were seriously injured in the accident, and were later taken to the
hospital, each with multiple fractures and head injuries.
However,
instead of stopping to help the women or call an ambulance, Moran, Asfur and
Gallianos drove to the beach near Haifa’s Bat Galim neighborhood, the indictment
said, where they abandoned the car, ripped off its license plates and fled the
area.
Moran is charged under the 1961 Traffic Ordinance with abandonment
after injuring a person, driving while disqualified, driving without due care
and attention and endangering life and causing injury as well as other traffic
offenses.
Asfur and Gallianos are both charged under the traffic
ordinance with failing to call emergency services after an accident, and under
the penal code with obstructing justice and changing the identity of a
vehicle.
Later on Monday, the Haifa District Court extended Moran’s and
Asfur’s detention, pending a further hearing.
Judge Ron Shapira said that
there was a sufficient evidentiary basis to remand the two defendants in
custody, and noted that the prosecution has alleged that the accident was partly
documented by security cameras. However, the court has yet to see that footage.
The court also noted that Moran and Asfur have so far maintained their right to
remain silent and have not given testimony.
Also on Monday, the Haifa
Magistrate’s Court extended the remand of the third defendant, Gallianos,
pending a further hearing.
Hit-and-run accidents have become a widespread
epidemic that claims the lives of around 18 Israelis every year and injure
another 1,000, according to the Or Yarok Association for Safer Driving, who have
been active in promoting tougher sentences for hit-and-run drivers.
Late
last year, MK Ze’ev Bielski (Kadima) initiated a bill designed to deter
hit-andrun drivers by allowing judges to impose a maximum prison sentence of 14
years, double that of the seven years currently allowed.