Army Radio says police officer failed to pass on intelligence to officials ahead of lawyer's murder.
By JPOST.COM STAFF
The Israel Prisons Service (IPS) had information some three months ago indicating that criminals were planning to harm lawyer Yoram Haham, who was killed in a car bomb in Tel Aviv on Wednesday night, Army Radio reported Friday.
According to the report, the information was transferred last March to a police officer in charge of coordinating between the Israel Police and the IPS, but the officer failed to pass on the information to the relevant officials.
Following past failures in passing on important intelligence warnings, a special computer program was set up for the automatic transfer of such information. In the case of Haham's murder, the information was supposed to get to the Tel Aviv Police's central headquarters.
Nevertheless, the program works on condition that the information is fed into the computer in the first place, and this wasn't done, according to the Army Radio report.
Former head of the Police Investigations Department (PID), Cmdr. (ret.) Haim Klein, told Army Radio that the writing was apparently on the wall. "It is not the only information on the case that police had." Klein told Army Radio. "I estimate that there were other pieces of information."
"Closing one direction of an investigation is an institutional error and I believe that several angles are being examined," he continued.
Klein said the probe was very difficult and complicated since Haham was not involved merely with petty criminals.
In response to the Army Radio report, the Israel Police and the IPS said they would not discuss intelligence passed between the two organizations.