"This is a person who could be described as bizarre," Farhan's lawyer reportedly tells judge.
By ABE SELIGadwan yihya farhan 248.88(photo credit: Dror Artzi / JINI)
The brother of the suspected serial killer who allegedly murdered Israeli-American teenager Dana Bennet and three other victims on Tuesday deplored his brother's "unimaginable" action and expressed his deepest sympathies for the family of the teen victim.
When Adwan Yihya Farhan appeared in court on Tuesday afternoon faced with murder charges spanning the past 14 years, his lawyer, Tami Ullmann, asked the court to allow her client a psychiatric evaluation.
"This is a person who could be described as bizarre," Ulmann reportedly told the judge.
"And he's tried to kill himself multiple times in the past."
And while that may be, police say the 32-year-old father of four from the Galilee village of Wadi Hammam has also tried to kill many others, and succeeded on at least four occasions.
Farhan's killing spree has now come to an end. Charged with the murders of Bennet in 2003, Czech tourist Sylvia Molorova that same year and Aharon Simahov in 2005, as well as an unidentified 40-year-old man in 1995, Farhan, described by investigators as a serial killer, faces life behind bars if convicted.
But Farhan's checkered past began long before Bennet disappeared, and runs the gamut from sex crimes to illegal weapons possession, narcotics and murder.
Although his first known killing occurred in 1995, when he beat and drowned the unidentified 40 year-old man on the banks of the Jordan River, Farhan didn't show up on law enforcement radar for four more years, and when he did, it wasn't for murder.
In 1999, Farhan was imprisoned after being convicted for sexual offenses and served four years in prison.
In 2002, his sentence was commuted and Farhan was released. But less than a year later, he killed Molorova near Nahal Tzalmon in the Galilee.
Five months later, he would murder Bennet.
While he was a person of interest at the beginning of the police investigation into Bennet's disappearance, Farhan was able to convince police he wasn't involved and was released.
From that point, Farhan didn't find himself in the penal system again until 2004, when he served 20 months for illegal arms possession.
The following year he was jailed again for three and a half years, after being convicted of armed robbery and fraud.
After his release, Farhan was again imprisoned, in 2008, for the rape and attempted kidnapping of an Australian tourist.
At the time of the police investigation's break in the Bennet case sometime last week, Farhan was still in Eshel prison serving time for that crime.
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