Witness recounts ’03 murders of Bennett, Molrova

Victims’ mothers present as suspect’s ex-girlfriend tells gruesome tale; Farhan ejected from courtroom for interrupting.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Yihye Farhan bennet killer 248.88 ch2 (photo credit: Channel 2)
Yihye Farhan bennet killer 248.88 ch2
(photo credit: Channel 2)
Y., the former girlfriend of Adwan Farhan, who is being tried on three counts of murder in Nazareth District Court, described on Wednesday in gruesome detail in the presence of the mothers of the slain women how he killed Dana Bennett and Sylvia Molrova in 2003.
Y. is not testifying regarding the killing of Aharon Simahov, a cellmate of Farhan’s during a brief incarceration in a Tiberias prison.
Farhan was forcibly removed from the courtroom on Wednesday after interrupting Y.’s testimony with curses, while Vicki Bennett, Dana’s mother, broke down and had to leave the courtroom as the witness described her daughter’s death.
Y. showed no emotion as she described how Farhan and she were driving in Upper Tiberias early on the morning of August 1, 2003, when they spotted Bennett, 17, getting out of a taxi. Farhan, she said, told her to approach Bennett and tell her they urgently needed a chambermaid and would pay her handsomely if she would come with them.
“I smiled at her and said, ‘Hello, I’m looking for a girl to clean rooms,” Y. told the court. “Here’s the boss. He will pay you NIS 500 an hour.”
She said Bennett asked some questions but Farhan told her to get into the car and he would explain everything. She sat in the back seat.
One of the judges asked Y. what she was thinking when Farhan told her to persuade Dana Bennett to get into the car.
She replied, “At that moment I understood that this was the end of her. He was looking for prey. He told me that he wanted to hunt girls who hitchhike and dress a certain way. He had something against Jews. He wanted to take the law into his own hands. I knew that was the end of her.”
Farhan headed toward Migdal, 8 km. to the north. At a gas station, he got out of the car. Dana turned to Y. and asked if he was okay and could be trusted. Y. said yes.
After the gas station, Farhan turned off onto a side road. Bennett asked why it was so dark and Farhan replied that there was a power failure.
When she asked whether he really intended to pay her, Farhan stopped the car and gave her NIS 600 in cash.
Soon afterward he stopped again and said he had to urinate.
“She told me in the car she was beginning to be afraid,” Y. testified. “I was also afraid and hugged the door. She got out of the car and walked toward Farhan. Farhan hit her.
“I saw her bend down and ask, ‘Where is my contact lens? I can’t see. What do you want from me? I’ll give you anything. Just don’t do anything to me.’”
Farhan responded that he didn’t want anything. But Y. then heard another blow and Bennett fell on her back.
“Farhan called me over and lit a match to her face,” she continued. “It was covered with blood and it was hard to make out her features.”
Farhan then extinguished a cigarette on Bennett’s face, removed her blouse and brassiere and choked her with the brassiere. He bit her hard on her chest, began to drag her and stamped on her body. Farhan asked Y. to help him drag Bennett’s body underneath the wreck of an old ice cream truck and ordered her to gather grass and place it around the body.
The two then drove to the gas station and filled a bottle with fuel. When they returned, Farhan poured the gasoline on the grass and lit it.
From there, Farhan and Y. drove to Farhan’s sister house to wash up. When she asked why they were so bloody, he said he had gotten into a fight.
During Y’s testimony, Vicky Bennett burst out crying, left the courtroom and fainted.
Afterward, she told reporters, “She’s honest and doesn’t tell lies. I knew this would be one of the hardest days and I had to leave when she got to the description of Dana’s murder. It was very hard for me to hear these things.”
Bennett added that Y.’s testimony “only further convinced me of what I have been saying all along, that she, too, is a killer.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Y. described the murder of Sylvia Molrova, a 27-year-old tourist from the Czech Republic, in July 2003.
According to Y., Farhan called her at around 3 or 4 a.m. “and told me to get dressed in dark clothes, gather up my hair, put on sneakers and come down downstairs. I asked him why and he said, ‘No questions.’”
Molrova was already in the car and they started to drive. Farhan asked Y. if she knew where there was a cistern.
“As we were driving,” continued Y., “I saw a big pond and said, ‘Maybe here?’ He said, ‘No, I need to find something fast, before it gets light.’ Then he signaled to me by running his finger across his neck – ‘This one is going to get it.’”
They reached Nahal Tzalmon, continued Y. Farhan picked up Molrova “like a sack” and she began to shout, “Aay, what have you done to me, aay, my head. I want to go home.”
She managed to get away from Farhan for a moment but he caught her and dragged her by her hair back to the stream. Then he choked her. Later, Y. and Farhan placed rocks on her body so she would sink to the bottom of the stream.
Y. added that two weeks later, Farhan told her Molrova had complained to the police that he had raped her.
Molrova’s mother came from the Czech Republic to attend the trial and held a picture of her daughter during Wednesday’s proceedings.
When Y. began to testify, Farhan started yelling and swearing at her. He called her a slut and a whore.
“Stop lying,” he shouted. “Stop listening to her lies. Tell them aboutthe stories you told about Dana, what you did to her, you bitch.”
The judges ordered the guards to remove Farhan from the court.
On Monday, Y. was sentenced by the Nazareth District Court to 14 yearsin jail for her involvement in the murder of the two young women. Thecharges were the outcome of a plea bargain with the state and theconviction and sentencing paved the way for Y. to testify againstFarhan.