Negev man arrested for 5 murders

Police probes whether three incidents - including two double murders - attributed to Adam Ital are merely the tip of the iceberg.

By REBECCA ANNA STOIL
Remand was extended Tuesday for a Beersheba resident suspected of involvement in five murders in 2007 alone, while police continued to probe whether the three incidents - including two double murders - attributed to Adam Ital are merely the tip of the iceberg. The Negev Subdistrict's Central Investigative Unit arrested 25-year-old Ital Monday morning as a suspect in additional murders while he was already in detention, as prosecutors prepared an indictment for the double murder of teens Eitan Izmailov and Ruslan Kobayev outside Beersheba's Bon Bon corner store on February 2, 2007. Even prior to the additional charges, Ital was set to remain in custody until the conclusion of proceedings against him surrounding the February murder. Police now say that Ital is also a suspect in the double murder of Muhammad Abu Galion and Atawa Abu Sa'aluk in April of last year, and the murder of Ro'i Tshuva in September of the same year. Police investigators said that in the course of the investigation, they had gathered evidence tying the suspect to the other two incidents, although they emphasized strongly that they could not rule out Ital's involvement in additional murders. Other suspects, they added, could also be arrested in connection with the chain of incidents. The bodies of Abu Galion, 30 and Abu Sa'aluk, 23, were found in mid-April inside a vehicle on the shoulder of the Beersheba bypass road. Both were Tel Sheva residents and were no strangers to the inside of Southern District courtrooms. They had been shot in the head and the chest, and within hours police announced that they were certain that the murders came as part of underworld feuds. Five months later, Ital was allegedly involved in the hit on Tshuva, also a known figure in the Beersheba underworld. Tshuva, believed by police to be involved in illegal gambling operations, was walking on the sidewalk in the city's Rehov Smolensky when, according to eyewitnesses, a vehicle containing three people pulled up close to him, and one or more of the passengers shot Tshuva at point-blank range. The earliest of the incidents that police have credited to Ital was the February double murder of Beersheba teens Kubayev, 18, and Izmailov, 17 - an attack in Beersheba's historical Old City that left a third teen wounded. The three had allegedly fled toward the corner store where they were shot after they were involved in a brawl in a nearby entertainment spot. The three were all residents of the Nahal Ashan neighborhood, the same neighborhood where Tshuva was gunned down a half-year later.