Four to receive reward for Sela capture

Serial rapist demands NIS 100,000 in return for sharing details of escape.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
benny sela scum 298.88 (photo credit: Israel Police)
benny sela scum 298.88
(photo credit: Israel Police)
Four people will receive NIS 25,000 each for helping to capture escaped serial rapist Benny Sela, Army Radio reported on Wednesday. Baruch Mazor, general manager of the Fischer Fund, said that the organization planned to divide the NIS 100,000 it had promised to whoever caught Sela among four different people who the organization felt had had a direct impact on the serial rapist's capture. The four, Mazor announced, were Lior Shatz, the soldier from Kibbutz Kinneret who spotted Sela and reported her sighting to police; Rina Greenberg, the woman who reported the suspicious car that turned out to be the vehicle Sela had stolen; Sela's foster family, who called the police immediately after he visited them while on the run; and finally, the policemen from the Nahariya Police Station who brought Sela down in the final moments of his chase. Mazor noted that the policemen who were involved in allowing degrading photographs of Sela to be taken after his capture would not partake of the reward. He added that some of those mentioned above had already refused the prize money, and that the organization would donate the money to other organizations which dealt with rape victims. Meanwhile, Sela was transferred under tight security Wednesday morning to Tel Aviv's Central Investigative Unit (CIU), where he will be interrogated for the first time since his December 8 capture after two weeks on the run, Army Radio reported. It was unknown whether Sela would release all the information he had regarding the time he spent at large. Although Sela displayed signs of willingness to share his side of the story, he demanded 100,000 NIS as a condition for revealing all the details, Ma'ariv reported. On Tuesday, Sela gave permission to his lawyer, Dino Tzphrir Yagur, to negotiate with the media over selling the rights to his escape story. According to Yagur, Sela needed the money to help his mother, who "has financial issues," and for funding his legal battle. Sela hoped that a news agency would be willing to pay him in return for exclusive rights to the story.