Nir Maoz: I cannot measure the emotional anguish

Trial in double murder of Nurit and Noah Maoz enters third day.

By MELANIE LIDMAN
Nir Maoz black and white 390 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Nir Maoz black and white 390
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
The trial of the double murder of Nurit and Noah Maoz continued on Tuesday, as the couple’s son, Nir Maoz, took to the witness stand for the second time to defend against accusations from his twin brother that he stabbed their parents to death.
Nir’s twin, Daniel, who has a known gambling addiction and was seen on the night of the murder in a disheveled state with spots of blood on his clothes, was indicted in September for the murders and has been incarcerated since then. DNA evidence also implicated him in the murders. But in a surprise twist last Wednesday, the first day of the trial, Daniel’s lawyers accused Nir of the murder because the two identical twins have the same DNA.
“How dare you? I’m the victim of a crime. I’m not just a witness – they murdered my parents!” Nir Maoz told the court on Tuesday after Daniel’s lawyer, David Barhoom, accused him again of stabbing his parents to death.
“My brother’s lawyers are being interviewed by the media, they’re sitting in news studios, they’re going on live feeds, and saying that I murdered and there’s evidence to prove it. This is not true. Even if they have evidence, which they don’t, and even if they have witnesses, which they don’t, I cannot measure in words the emotional anguish this has caused me,” he said in his testimony.
In addition to Nir’s testimony on Tuesday, the police investigator testified that he immediately suspected that the couple was murdered by someone they knew well, because the apartment was not broken into and the couple had answered the door in their pajamas, including Nurit, who was recovering from cancer and was not wearing her wig.
Additionally, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Service) quickly ruled out the possibility that the murder was a terror attack.
Police investigated Nir Maoz for the third time on Sunday after the defense accused him of the murder. Nir served in the police’s investigations unit but did not work with any of the current investigators, police said on Tuesday.
The trial will continue next Wednesday in the Jerusalem District Court.