Father and brother of murder victim arrested for attempted revenge plot

Police say suspects paid woman to lure target, a relative of the murderer, to remote area in Negev where they planned to kill him.

By DANIEL K. EISENBUD
Handcuffs (illustrative photo) 370 (photo credit: Reuters)
Handcuffs (illustrative photo) 370
(photo credit: Reuters)
Six months after the murder of an Arab-Israeli man, the victim’s father and brother were arrested in Rahat on Wednesday for attempting to pay a woman to lure a member of the killer’s family to a remote area in the Negev, where they planned to kill him in revenge.
According to police, following the murder in the Rahat region last year, the alleged killer was arrested and is in custody as he awaits trial. Because the father and brother could not reach him in prison, they decided to target one of his immediate family members instead.
“We call this a ‘Red Riding Hood’ scenario, because the father and son contacted a woman to befriend the intended victim and lure him to the place where they planned to kill him,” police spokeswoman Nava Tabou said on Thursday. “Since they knew they couldn’t kill the person they wanted, they decided to get ‘an eye for an eye’ by killing someone close to him.’”
Tabou said the pair offered the unidentified woman money to befriend the targeted family member so she could later lure him to the place they intended to carry out the murder.
In the meantime, the father and son contacted an Arab-Israeli man from the North to acquire illegal weapons, she added.
However, detectives from the Merhav Negev Central Investigation Unit, aided by Rahat Police, uncovered the murder plot and contacted the woman before the crime was committed and the weapons were delivered, resulting in the arrest of the father, son and alleged arms dealer.
Tabou said that because the woman did not accept the money to lure the victim to his death and fully cooperated with police, she would not be charged with a crime.
“She is not a criminal and was quite scared,” she said.
A judge ordered all three suspects remanded until Wednesday.