15 Lod men charged for weapons, violence, extortion

Charges include acquiring and selling rifles, handguns, grenades, bullets and cartridges, extortion and plotting to harm a Jaffa man.

By JOANNA PARASZCZUK
broken window crime vandalism 311 (photo credit: Thinkstock )
broken window crime vandalism 311
(photo credit: Thinkstock )
The Central District Attorney’s Office filed an indictment in the district court in Petah Tikva on Thursday, charging 15 men from Lod and surrounding villages with a string of weapons offenses, violence and extortion.
The indictment lists 36 charges against the 15 defendants, two of whom are minors and cannot be named. The charges include acquiring and selling rifles, handguns, grenades, bullets and cartridges, extortion and plotting to harm a Jaffa man.
At the center of the alleged offenses is 24-year-old Lod resident Khamis Dasuki, who is connected with 34 of the 36 charges listed in the indictment. Along with the trade in illegal weapons, charges against Dasuki include shooting firearms in a residential area, conspiracy to commit extortion, and obstruction of justice.
According to the first charge in the indictment, on January 18 Dasuki and three other defendants, Faisal Abu Eid, 34, Jidua Azbargeh, 31, Bila’al Azbargeh, 21, carried out an illegal weapons deal.
When Dasuki and Abu Eid allegedly tried to transfer the weapons to the buyer in a jeep, they found that police had set up a roadblock at the entrance to Ramle. The indictment says Dasuki and Abu Eid then tried to flee, smashing another vehicle in the process and throwing the weapons out of the car.
Dasuki instructed his accomplices to give a false alibi to police, the indictment charges. However, after Dasuki’s arrest, Abu Eid admitted to police he had given false evidence about Dasuki’s alibi in order to obstruct the investigation.
The second charge accuses Dasuki and Nabil al-Bina, 27, of plotting to harm a Jaffa resident whom Dasuki said stabbed his brother.
The two minors named in the indictment have been charged with conspiracy for a felony. At a hearing in the Central District Court on Thursday afternoon, Judge Avraham Tal agreed to delay the arraignment hearing for the two minors, after their attorneys requested more time to respond to the charges.


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