Well-known Haifa criminal found gunned down in suspected underworld hit

Victim, Itzik Kisus, was involved in number of high-profile organized crime investigations in recent years.

By BEN HARTMAN
Police generic in english crime scene 370 (photo credit: REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar)
Police generic in english crime scene 370
(photo credit: REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar)
A well-known Haifa criminal and long-time target of the Israel Police was gunned down in a parking garage in Or Yehuda on Monday morning, Tel Aviv police said.
The body of 38-year-old Itzik Kisus was found laying motionless in the underground parking garage of his apartment building on Nitzan street in Or Yehuda around 6:30 a.m. by a bystander who called police.
He had been shot a number of times in the upper body, paramedics said.
Kisus, once a top member of mobster Ze’ev Rosenstein’s organization, was involved in a number of high-profile organized crime investigations in recent years, and was one of several suspects arrested in a major money laundering and underground casino case in March 2011 in the north. He was later indicted along with his wife and sister- in-law for threatening the prosecutor handling the case.
Six years earlier, Kisus was one of a number of suspects indicted in the “Broken Wings” case, which dealt with a string of gangland hits tied to a war for control of organized crime in Israel’s north. In that case, Kisus was indicted for the attempted murder of Meir Abergil, one of Israel’s top organized crime figures. The case also uncovered plans to kill then-MK Amram Mitzna and Jerusalem mobster Yitzhak Bar-Muha.
On Monday morning Tel Aviv police handed the case over to the LAHAV 433 national investigative unit, a move that is typical when a murder victim is a target of police organized crime investigators.