Maoz increasingly angers judges in murder trial

Daniel Maoz, accused of murdering his parents, infuriates judges on 3rd day of testimony by attempts to circumvent questions.

By MELANIE LIDMAN
Daniel Maoz takes witness stand 370 (photo credit: MELANIE LIDMAN)
Daniel Maoz takes witness stand 370
(photo credit: MELANIE LIDMAN)
Daniel Maoz, the 28-year-old lawyer accused of murdering his parents Nurit and Noah Maoz last August, continued in his third day of testimony on Wednesday, frequently frustrating the judges in his attempts to circumvent the questions and maintain his innocence.
“Answer the question!” Judge Zvi Segal admonished a number of times as Maoz tried to give long, winding explanations to the prosecutor’s questions as to why he cleaned the crime scene with copious amounts of bleach and even cleaned under his parents’ fingernails with a knife to remove DNA after they were dead.
Nurit and Noah Maoz were found stabbed to death in their Ramot apartment on August 13, 2011. Daniel Maoz was arrested a month later, though throughout the trial he claimed that his twin brother, Nir, carried out the murders.
The identical twins share the same DNA, which was found at the crime scene.
State prosecutor Yuval Kaplinsky played some of the recordings of the police investigating Maoz after the murder, where police caught Maoz changing his version of the events and going back on his previous testimony.
“So you basically told the police, ‘I wasn’t in Jerusalem, but if you have evidence that puts me in Jerusalem, I’ll explain why I was there,’” said Kaplinsky.
“I change my versions a lot, and it’s true that there are places that I just don’t talk,” Maoz said later during Wednesday’s testimony. Maoz stressed to the judges that his decision to maintain his silence was not lying, rather he was just not “offering the whole truth.”
Maoz, who has admitted to a gambling addiction, worked as a lawyer before he was incarcerated a month after the murders in September, a fact that was evident in Maoz’s long, circuitous answers to the judge’s questions.
“I’ll explain,” Maoz said, when Kaplinsky asked him about whether or not Maoz searched the Internet for information about murders before his parents were found dead.
“Don’t explain, tell us if it’s right or wrong!” Segal yelled at one point.
A few hours before the murder, Maoz searched online for the terms “murder for inheritance” and “how to get away with murder.” Maoz claims he searched for this “out of curiosity” because he was concerned that Nir would murder his parents after Nir and his parents had a disagreement.
Maoz was hundreds of thousands of shekels in debt from gambling when his parents were murdered. Maoz also accused his twin brother Nir of harassing him from the gallery on Wednesday.
“I’m barely able to stand here when he’s here, every night I hear the screams that he caused,” Maoz said. For the first time, Maoz’s sister, Tamar, did not attend the trial. Another sibling, Guy, a physician in New York who returned for Maoz’s testimony last week, also did not attend the trial.