Court throws out charges in attempted murder case, slams police tactics

Undercover operative aggressively egged on accused, court says.

By YONAH JEREMY BOB
Israel Police logo (photo credit: Courtesy)
Israel Police logo
(photo credit: Courtesy)
A three-judge panel of the Jerusalem District Court on Tuesday acquitted Solomon Radai of attempted murder and arson, after he had been charged with fanfare as a coup for the police in solving an open-and-shut case in September.
Radai is still accused of murdering his wife in 2003, but that charge as well may be vulnerable, after the court blasted the police for aggressively egging Radai on to commit crimes.
The court said: “The initiative and activism of the police in exploiting the fragile mental state of the accused after he was detained, exacerbates the tampering” with his actions “sufficiently to annul the accusations” regarding arson and attempted murder.
The court said the undercover policeman involved in arresting Radai went too far. It said the operative planted the arson idea in Radai’s head, assisted him, and paid him for perpetrating the act, to get back at someone who owed him a debt.
Next, it said that the operative returned to Radai with a request to car bomb the same person who still owed him a debt.
The court said the operative was so aggressive that it could not allow a trial of Radai, as it was very unclear that Radai would have undertaken the crimes without the operative planting them in his head.
Though the murder charge against his wife – to which Radai allegedly confessed on tape to the operative – has not yet been thrown out, it may suffer the same fate as the other charges, as the operative’s credibility may be have been compromised.