A Rahat woman suspected of murdering three of her young children will be sent
for psychiatric evaluation to determine whether she is fit to stand trial, the
Beersheba Magistrate’s Court ruled on Thursday.
The court also ordered
the mother’s remand extended until September 30, by which point the state will
be required to present a ruling from a psychiatrist as to whether she can stand
trial.
Negev District Police said on Thursday that the mother, Ahlas
Alargan, had linked herself to the killings, and that they were confident she
played a key role in the crime.
The Beduin city of Rahat was shaken by
news of the triple murder on Wednesday, during which three of the woman’s
children, aged eight, four, and two months, were found brutally killed in their
family home. The case has puzzled police and local residents, who have said that
the family was “normative” and never had any sort of dealings with police or
social services.
If the mother is deemed unfit to stand trial she could
be sent to a psychiatric facility.
Meanwhile, a man phoned police early
Tuesday morning to report that he had just murdered his wife in the house they
shared in Herzliya. The husband, 65- year-old Mordechai Chaim, had murdered his
previous wife over twenty years earlier and was ruled unfit to stand
trial.
While he was sentenced to serve 14 years in Abarbanel State Mental
Health Center in Bat Yam, Ma’ariv reported on Thursday that he served only a
little over a year before he was released. He also later passed certification to
carry a handgun for a job he held as a security guard.