Court extends by six days remand of suspected TA hit-and-run killer

Police assert Shalom Yemini drove car that killed Meital Aharonson and injured Mali Yazdi on Oct. 17.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
suspect 224.88 (photo credit: Channel 10)
suspect 224.88
(photo credit: Channel 10)
Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court Judge Shmuel Landman extended the remand of Shalom Yemini, 35, on Wednesday for six days after accepting the police assertion that he was driving the car when it slammed into two women crossing Ibn Gvirol Street in Tel Aviv on October 17. In the hit-and-run accident, Meital Aharonson, 27, from Herzliya was killed and her friend Mali Yazdi was badly hurt. She is still hospitalized in serious condition. Yemini told police he was drunk at the time and did not remember anything. "Without doubt, there is substantial basis for suspecting that Yemini was driving at the time of the accident even beyond the claim to that effect of the other person involved. At least two absolutely objective eyewitnesses gave clear testimony [that Yemini was driving.]" The other person in the car was Shai Simon, who was at the wheel when the two drove away from the Tel Aviv port area after a third friend, who was originally driving the car, was stopped by police for an inhalator test. Simon has testified that he was not driving the car when the women were hit. Originally, the lawyers representing the two suspects had argued that there was no proof their clients were the ones who hit the women. But police told the court they were able to trace the pair to the site and time of the accident through their cellphones. Yemini's lawyers, Shai Nudel, Guy Friedman and Eli Cohen, told Landman that the police should conduct a confrontation between their client and Simon. Landman agreed, but said it could not be done for the time being. Yazdi's mother, Batya Hameiri Yazdi, told reporters after the hearing, "My daughter is in serious condition and I want [Yemini] to rot in jail as long as possible. I just want to say that he is a killer. Let him rot in jail and let them not let him out. A good girl, innocent and pure of soul, is lying underneath the ground. They don't care at all. He didn't stop to help them, he fled and [says he] can't remember anything. But he remembered how to get home that night."