State prosecutors from the Central District indicted 14 members of the
Abdel-Kader crime family on a series of organized crime charges, including
membership in a criminal organization, extortion, money laundering, and other
serious crimes.
Those charged include the alleged head of the crime
family, 59-year-old Mabruk Abdel-Kader, and two of his sons, Warabi and Adi, 29
and 27, considered senior officers in the organization.
The indictment
also includes Abed Haj Yihyeh, a Taiba lawyer who worked in the employ of the
gang, giving them legal counsel and allegedly brokering loan sharking and
property takeovers for the gang.
The indictment gives a lengthy breakdown
of how the organization has operated during the last three decades that it
allegedly ruled the central Israel city of Taiba, and made inroads into the
underworld across central Israel.
While the indictment doesn’t include
any murder charges, it does say that since a blood feud began between the
Abdel-Kader and al-Hariri crime gangs, more than 50 people have been killed on
both sides.
The indictment speaks about how the family ran “war rooms” in
their family compound, with banks of plasma screens hooked up to surveillance
cameras they put around the complex and across the city of Taiba. Some of those
cameras were permanently affixed on the Taiba police station, so that they could
know of potential raids ahead of time, and to keep tabs on any local residents
going to police to testify, the indictment alleges.
In addition, the
indictment says the family exploited people in difficult economic straits,
giving them extremely high interest loans and using their loan-sharking to take
control of local businesses and property, earning them millions.
The
indictment also states that throughout their years of operation, the family has
used intimidation and the strength of its reputation to terrorize local
residents into doing their bidding.
The organized crime charges against
the family include some of the most serious in the penal code.
Speaking
to The Jerusalem Post on Sunday, one of the lawyers for the family dismissed the
charges and said they have no intention of agreeing to a plea bargain and will
fight every charge against them.