Nahariya: Ex-Officer who targeted mob kingpin shot, injured

Police say "number of shots" fired at Eldad Hadad near synagogue in which he prayed; Hadad one of 4 officers to serve time for targeting home of organized crime chief, Michael Mor.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN
crime scene (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski [illustrative])
crime scene
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski [illustrative])
A former police detective from Nahariya, who was one of four officers to serve time in prison for targeting the home of an organized crime chief with explosives, was shot and wounded in Nahariya on Saturday evening.
Eldad Hadad was near a synagogue in which he regularly prayed when he was struck by three bullets fired by a man on a motorcycle, Police Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told The Jerusalem Post.
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The motorcycle was driven by a getaway driver, he said, describing the attack as a “drive-by shooting.”
Hadad was rushed to the the city’s Western Galilee Hospital, and was in moderate condition, doctors said.
An intensive investigation has been launched on the scene, together with an intelligence gathering operation to determine “who could be behind this,” Rosenfeld said. Police set up road blocks around Nahariya in an effort to capture the two attackers.
Hadad, together with colleagues Yaniv Ashur, Yossi Levi and Rami Musa, were released from prison earlier this year after being convicted of planting explosives at the home of mob kingpin Michael Mor.
The officers were convicted of putting bombs in Mor’s vehicle, and in the home of his cousin.
The officers said they acted after Mor ordered his men to throw grenades at their homes as part of a campaign to intimidate them, and that their pleas for help from police brass went unanswered.
“Hadad was under the protection afforded to threatened officers,” a Galilee police spokesman said on Saturday. “A security guard was stationed at his house, and patrol vehicles regularly pass by his home. Following the shooting, security for the threatened officers will be reviewed.”
The officers’ actions sparked controversy over the police’s ability to back up rank-and-file officers on the front line in the war on organized crime, and prompted a police review of protection afforded to the increasing number of officers coming under death threats from mobsters.
Mor was sentenced to two years in prison in 2007 after being convicted of trying to extort judges and making death threats against police officers. In 2009, he was released from prison. He was photographed wearing a white kippa over a shaved head as he entered a blacked-out BMW driven by one of his associates.
Mor was banned from entering Nahariya, and has since moved to Yokne’am, where police have continued to keep him under watch.
In 2010, he was arrested on suspicion of a number of offenses, but he was released soon afterwards without charge.
In April, he was arrested again on suspicion of drug possession, but released due to a lack of evidence after it was established that he was not in possession of a narcotic.
“Michael Mor has left the past behind him,” said his attorney, Yahali Shperling, after Mor’s release in 2009. “He intends to live a normal life and to care for his family.”
In recent years, dozens of public officials and police officers have been placed under special police protection after being threatened by criminals.