Letters from prison reveal how gangsters plotted each other's demise

'Shai, you love me, plant some kind of device… to let them know I'm not kidding,' one letter reads.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN
NOT francois abutbul 224.88 (photo credit: Channel 10)
NOT francois abutbul 224.88
(photo credit: Channel 10)
Letters written by mobsters behind bars asking their allies to murder both rivals and relatives were revealed by the police's National Serious and International Crimes Unit this week. One letter was written by Avi Abutbul, who is on trial for the 2004 slaying of a youth outside a night club in Kibbutz Shfayim. The letter contained a clear request to kill a member of Abutbul's own extended family, Francois Abutbul, who is also in custody for the same murder. "Avi switched sides while in prison, leaving the Abutbul family, and joining the family's rivals, the Shirazis. Avi is full of fury and wants something done," a police spokesman explained. The Abutbuls and Shirazis have been involved in a protracted feud in Netanya. A total of six letters were seized by police, some of them hidden in prisoners' underwear and found during a cell search. "What's going on, bro," Avi wrote to Shai Shirazi, who is also in custody and awaiting trial for the May murder of a 25-year-old man in Netanya. "I heard from a good friend who's doing time with Francois that… within a week or two they want to come up against my dad and brothers, for sure. I can't do a thing from here and I'm nervous. I want you to go to Francois and Charlie and tell them that if they're real men, let them wait for me to get out and let them come to me, not my family. "I can't call from here, everything's recorded and I'll complicate us all with these f****** phones, do me a favor and talk to them in my name, tell them if they make a mistake I'll have their souls. "Shai, you love me, plant some kind of device, doesn't matter against who, either one of them… to let them know I'm not kidding. And if you can, see if someone can be paid shekels to get rid of one of them," Avi wrote. "Do me a favor f*** them up this coming week for me, doesn't matter which one, just so they get hit," he continued. Meanwhile, on the other side of the divide, Francois Abutbul wrote a letter asking an ally to "whack" a member of the Shirazi clan and, according to police suspicions, to kill Avi Abutbul, too. "If my dad or someone tells you not to do everything in one go don't listen, do what I'm asking. I don't trust anyone, only myself. Till now there was no response and a response is needed that will make up for all the lack of responses," he wrote. "What can I do, I'm inside… I trust you to finish this for me. I feel I'm being stepped on too much. A painful response is needed. I want to go for something that will hurt them all the way, that they take a step back," he wrote. On the basis of the above letter, Avi Abutbul will be indicted for conspiracy to commit a crime, the police spokesman said. "We're considering charges against others," he added.