From hit man to hi-tech?

Avner Harari, who has spent 35 years behind bars, is working on a smartphone app for navigating hospitals.

By BEN HARTMAN
Avner Harari 370 (photo credit: YouTube Screenshot)
Avner Harari 370
(photo credit: YouTube Screenshot)
Just as Apple founder Steve Jobs had his parents’ garage, would-be hi-tech pioneer Avner Harari has his cell at Sharon Prison.
Unlike Jobs, Harari is commonly known as “Israel’s No. 1 hit man” and is serving his 10th prison sentence, having spent 35 of his 58 years behind bars.
Nonetheless, like Jobs, Harari has a vision. He spent the past several months working on an application to help people navigate Israel’s hospitals and cemeteries and has found an investor and an entrepreneur working together to get the app on the market.
Harari’s attorney, Avi Amiram, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that the idea for the application came when Harari – who has a lot of free time on his hands in prison, where he’s serving a six-year sentence for conspiracy to commit murder and illegal possession of a firearm – heard about a relative’s problems finding a specific department during a visit to an Israeli hospital. Harari hit upon the idea of creating a navigation system that would use maps of the medical centers to help people find where they need to go, and he has spent the past several months talking about it and searching for investors.
Amiram said Harari wants to call the app “Easy Way,” and that his client told him that he has an investor who has pledged to pour around NIS 100,000 into its development.
Amiram said the Prisons Service is not letting his client speak to the press; instead, he – Amiram – has been asked by the press about the rather unlikely hi-tech innovator, including in an interview last night with Channel 10’s Tzinor Layla.
Amiram said that the investor and the entrepreneur are law-abiding, “everyday people” and not at all involved in the criminal world.
The attorney explained that users of the application will be able to enter the hospital department they want to visit.
The program will direct them to the nearest parking space, and once they exit their vehicle, it will lead them on a path directly to the department or doctor they need.
Harari needs the cooperation of a medical center looking to serve as the pilot facility for the application, after which they can begin mapping other buildings.
Amiram did not say if the application will help would-be hit men find their wounded quarry in the hospital in order to finish them off.
The application is “still in its diapers,” Amiram said, adding that there still is no program developed for it, but that Harari is optimistic that it’s a matter of time.
On October 16, Harari will appear before a parole board, and if they decide to reduce his sentence by a third, he’ll be released from prison and free to pitch the idea in the office parks of the “start-up nation.”
Amiram said his client hopes that the program won’t just be a meal ticket.
“He wants to settle down. He’s sick of being in and out of prison and wants also to give something back to society and help his own rehabilitation.”
Described as a longterm hired gun in the service of the Abergil crime family, Harari reportedly worked as a freelance hit man and was allegedly hired by rivals of the Abergils and the Amir Mulner organization.
Harari served a 37-month sentence after his conviction in February 2007 for the attempted murder of Netanya mobster Assi Abutbul, who escaped after the LAW missile fired at his car narrowly missed its target.