Netanya man nabbed in stolen car with LAW missile

By REBECCA ANNA STOIL
Israel Police on Sunday released a gag order on an arrest made earlier this month, in which police nabbed a man suspected of driving a stolen car, and, upon inspecting the car, discovered a LAW missile and a Kalashnikov assault rifle, as well as spare ammunition clips. An indictment against the suspect, Baruch Zuaretz, was filed Sunday in the Tel Aviv District Court. Two weeks ago, police from the Glilot Station had set up a checkpoint on Route 2, north of Kfar Shmaryahu. A Toyota, whose driver apparently had noticed the checkpoint, turned around and tried to flee police by driving into oncoming traffic as it entered the affluent Tel Aviv suburb of Kfar Shmaryahu. After a hot pursuit, police recovered the car, which had been abandoned. Minutes later, they apprehended the suspect, Zuaretz, a 24-year-old Netanya resident. Police recovered the weapons in the vehicle, and also noticed that both the vehicle and its license plates were stolen. The investigation was handed over to the International and Serious Crimes Unit, and following their investigation, the indictment against Zuaretz was handed down on Sunday. Zuaretz was charged with illegal weapons possession, theft, theft of license plates, and endangering human life on public roads. Zuaretz's attorney, Moshe Sherman, blasted the indictment, saying that his client was not in possession of the car, and highlighting the fact that his client was not apprehended in the car, but rather a few streets away from the abandoned vehicle. Sherman, in an interview on Channel 10, rejected claims that his client was involved in organized crime by pointing out that the indictment does not mention any connection with a criminal organization. He did not, however, state conclusively that his client was not involved in organized crime, answering instead that anybody could accuse anyone of being involved in organized crime without offering proof. Suspicions of an organized crime connection arose in part because of the LAW missile, which has become a popular weapon in violence among crime syndicates. Four months ago, rivals fired a LAW missile at the Netanya house of suspected crime lord Assi Abutbul.