http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=205293 They like to murder women 13 arrested in terror cell behind US hiker's murder
By MELANIE LIDMAN AND YAAKOV KATZ
01/26/2011 12:03
4 Palestinians indicted for death of Kristine Luken; men part of terror cell responsible for series of murders, violence since 2009.
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Four Palestinians from villages near Hebron were indicted on Wednesday for murdering an American tourist in December in a forest near Beit Shemesh, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and Jerusalem Police revealed on Wednesday. The suspects are central members of an independent terror cell in the West Bank that was responsible for two murders, two attempted murders, and at least one rape, as well as other incidents of theft and violence dating to as early as the summer of 2009.
Thirteen men were arrested in connection with the terror cell following a month-long joint investigation between the Shin Bet, border police, special army units, and police, it was announced on Wednesday.
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Police were aware of the terror cell operating in the area for the past six months, but were only able to arrest the central members after a murder and stabbing attack in the Mata area in late December, when American Kristine Luken was killed and her hiking partner Kay Wilson seriously injured. Wilson survived the attack by playing dead, despite being stabbed 12 times and suffering from multiple broken ribs, a punctured lung, and a broken sternum.
She was able to provide accurate descriptions of the attackers, which she shared with investigators in between multiple surgeries at Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in the hours after the attack. Wilson’s testimony allowed the police to arrest the two main suspects, Ayad Fasafa and Kafeh Animat, less than 48 hours after the December 18 attack, said Jerusalem District Commissioner Aharon Franco.
The suspects were arrested on December 21 in a joint IDF-Shin Bet operation and during their interrogation immediately confessed to perpetrating the attack and reenacted it in the field. During their interrogation, one of the suspects, Kafah Animat, confessed to another murder last February of Neta Shorek Blatt, a Zichron Yaakov resident whose body was found next to a mosque in Beit Jamal on February 24. Police never concluded their investigation into the death of 56-year-old Blatt, though initially they were suspicious that her death was a suicide.
The terror cell was also behind an attempted murder attack on an Ethiopian couple, also in the forest around Beit Shemesh, on February 20, 2010, which they said was in retaliation for the Mahbouh assassination in Dubai at the end of January. Police said that the ensuing attacks were not in retaliation for specific events, but they were sure that the attacks were nationalistically motivated because all of the victims were Jewish or perceived to be Jewish. They were not believed to have been affiliated with an organized terrorist group.
The men are also charged with at least one rape and one rape attempt from separate incidents, all in the same area. They also were responsible for shooting at an army and police vehicles, breaking into apartments and car theft.
Four of the central suspects were indicted on Wednesday, and police are in the process of bringing indictments against the rest. In addition to the four central suspects, four men were arrested for financially supporting the cell and an additional five were arrested for their peripheral involvement.
Wilson was hailed as a hero for providing the investigators with the final breakthrough to identify the suspects. The Shin Bet said that the suspects confessed to planning the murder of Luken just hours prior to the attack. “They decided they wanted to kill someone that day,” a Shin Bet source said.
During the struggle, Wilson succeeded in stabbing one of the suspects in the arm with a small pocketknife she carried with her as a tour guide. This enabled the Shin Bet to identify one of the suspects, who was imprisoned in the past in Israel, to Lokan’s murder through DNA samples that were found at the scene.
Shin Bet sources said that the suspects succeeded in entering Israel through gaps in the security barrier near the settlement of Beitar Illit south of Jerusalem. Police have identified the area between Hebron and Beit Shemesh as an especially porous part of the border between the West Bank and Israel, where many Palestinians are able to illegally enter Israel in order to get to their jobs around Beit Shemesh. Police said that the Army’s Kfir unit, the border police, and police stationed in the Beit Shemesh area had stepped up patrols to try to combat violence and illegal activity in the area.
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