Daniel Maoz, the 28-year-old lawyer suspected of murdering his parents in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramot last August, took the witness stand for the first time on Monday in the Jerusalem District Court and continued to proclaim that his twin brother, Nir Maoz, is responsible for the murders.Maoz was arrested a month after the murders and has spent the last six months in prison. State prosecutors have built a strong case against him, including the fact that he had a gambling addiction and was hundreds of thousands of shekels in debt, an addiction Maoz confirmed on Monday.Additionally, he showed up at a friend’s apartment to gamble the night of the murders disheveled, nervous and in blood-spattered clothes.As he took the stand, Maoz told the courtroom “the murderer is sitting right here...”gesturing to where his twin had been sitting.Nir slipped out to the hall as his twin took the stand, taking Maoz by surprise.Maoz continued to protest his innocence, calling the charge that he was the murderer “ridiculous.” “I think the state has understood that for a while now,” he said.If the police hadn’t made so many mistakes in the investigation they would not have arrested him, he added.Maoz testified that he began to suspect Nir was planning to hurt their parents after speaking with him the afternoon of the murder, when Nir hinted that he needed to “iron out difficulties with our parents.” In the weeks before, Nir had complained frequently about strains in their relationship and had said he was capable of murdering them, Maoz testified.“As soon as I understood Nir was going to do something, I understood immediately that I would be more suspicious than Nir,” Maoz said.He also testified about his history of gambling addiction and an incident three years ago when he stole money from his parents and then called the police to report a robbery.He expressed regret for the incident.Maoz claimed that he went to their parents’ house the night of the murder in order to warn them that Nir had said threatening things.The suspect spoke slowly and deliberately as he described watching from the bathroom as his twin brother entered the house and as he heard his parents scream “He’s murdering me!” Maoz said he was “scared to death” of Nir and was terrified of notifying police, even when they later started focusing their investigation on him.Maoz added he was paralyzed by fear and couldn’t leave the bathroom to call for help or stop Nir during the murder.“I didn’t know if he was alone, today it’s really hard for me that I stayed in the bathroom, but if I hadn’t stayed in there I wouldn’t be here today,” he said.The judges expressed disbelief as Maoz gave his testimony.“Why didn’t you tell?” chief judge Zvi Segal pressed as he grew increasingly agitated with Maoz’s attempts to evade the question.“Someone murdered your parents in your presence, how could you not do something with this?” The judges were especially suspicious of Maoz’s various versions of the night, where he originally claimed he wasn’t at the house, then he claimed he was but he didn’t see the murderer, then finally he said he saw the murderer and it was his twin, Nir.They accused him of changing his version as police uncovered more information, including security cameras that placed him in his parents’ neighborhood. Maoz maintained he was terrified of his twin.“You are already under arrest, you’ve already gone through the processes of the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court extending your arrest, you are under guard by police and you still are concerned about your twin brother Nir?” Segal asked. “Why are you still guarding this secret?” When Maoz tried to protest, Segal admonished him: “You are not in danger from your brother when you are under police protection!” Maoz answered that no one could understand exactly what was going through his mind. He also defended his decision not to call an ambulance after discovering his parents covered in stab wounds by saying that he knew that they were already dead and an ambulance would not have helped.After the murders, Maoz left the house and drove to his apartment in Tel Aviv. An hour later, Maoz returned to his parents’ house to clean the crime scene with copious amounts of bleach, including using another knife to clean under his parents’ fingernails in order to remove traces of DNA. Nir and Daniel Maoz share the same DNA because they are identical twins.“It’s instinctive, I can’t explain why, but I have to clean the knife because there are my fingerprints on it,” Maoz testified, explaining that he had moved the knife after discovering his parents’ bodies.“I was sure they wouldn’t believe me, and I was sure that they’d believe Nir,” he said.“I was sure that I’d get arrested because I had already made one or two mistakes...This is a man who I’m scared to death of. I know one thing, he’s going to hurt more people if I talk, but if I don’t talk, no one will get hurt.”“Maybe you should talk about the truth, Mr. Maoz,” Segal responded sarcastically after seven hours of testimony stretched on into the afternoon. “Here, we want to hear the truth. Explain. There is only one truth.”Outside the courtroom, Guy Maoz, one of the four Maoz siblings, who traveled from America for part of the trial, said the family firmly supported Nir.“It was clear to everyone that the testimony today was ridiculous and made a joke out of our beloved parents’ memory,” he said.The Noga Legal Center for the Rights of Crime Victims, which is assisting the Maoz family, sent a letter to Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein asking his office to examine ways to change the legal procedures in order to minimize the damage to Nir Maoz’s reputation and emotional well-being as a result of the trial.“We recognize the right of the suspect to defend himself and tell his version in court, but we believe the time has come for the court to determine how far that right can go in hurting this family that has suffered so much,” said Tali Eisenberg, a lawyer with the Noga Center, said outside the courtroom.
