The murder in Haifa was "solved," but the assassins remained anonymous and free

Muhammad Suaed, 25, from Shfaram, was charged with the murder of 29-year-old Ibrahim Belkis near his home in the Halisa neighborhood of Haifa.

However, the indictment indicates that there are three others involved in the act who have not yet been captured.

Defendant's defense: "There are investigative failures, the police could have prevented the case"

Yoav Itiel

09/01/2022

Sunday, 09 January 2022, 09:00 Updated: 09:03

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Zero car shots and shooting: Documentation of the murder in Halisa (security cameras)

Police have filed an indictment against Muhammad Suaed, a 25-year-old resident of Shefar'am, for the shooting murder of 29-year-old Ibrahim Belkis near his home in the Halisa neighborhood of Haifa.

The Coastal District Central Unit arrested him and brought him to justice on a charge of aggravated murder and other serious offenses.

The indictment filed on Thursday states that Suaed was allegedly a key figure in linking the murder and that he even served as their observer for the gang.

However, according to the indictment, he fled the scene even before the murderous shooting, and the other three involved, including the two gunmen who shot and their getaway driver, remained unknown and had not yet been captured.

According to the indictment filed in the Haifa District Court, the background to the murder that took place on November 24 is a conflict that arose between Balkis and Suaed.

The indictment also reveals that nine days before the fatal incident, an earlier attempt had been made that failed to eliminate Balkis when he left a hookah business near the Tower of the Prophets in Haifa.

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Murdered outside his home.

Ibrahim Balkis (Photo: Official Website, Facebook)

Bullet holes in Balkis' vehicle (Photo: Official website, without credit)

According to the indictment, for the purpose of the murder the four men were equipped with two semi-automatic pistols. That afternoon, Muhammad Suaed patrolled a car that a friend had asked near Ibrahim's apartment that lived above the small shopping center on Heroes Street in Halisa, then settled into the lookout and the other three arrived under his guidance from Basmat Tivon and waited nearby. The indictment states that the three waited about an hour and a half, until the report was received from Sa'ad that Balkis approached his car with his 23-year-old friend Mahmoud, got into it, moved it and lingered. According to the claimant, then Suaed got away in the vehicle in which he arrived, and his two accomplices went into action. From the alley where they were waiting, they emerged masked on the run and from a short distance fired at least 26 bullets of which at least 15 were fired at Blacks and his friend and punctured the vehicle. The friend was injured but managed to escape from the car. A civilian rushed Balkis in his car to Rambam Hospital in the city, where he arrived with numerous bullet wounds that penetrated his body, abdomen, chest and back, lifeless.

This incident took place about 300 meters from the Hof district headquarters and the Haifa station on Natan Elbaz Street.

A researcher from the Hof District Central Unit, Sergeant Tal Rotem, who was working in his office at the time, heard the shooting at random and even wrote a memorandum on the matter. At the Zevulun junction, detectives from the Northern District Central Unit, who were called there to help with the description of the vehicle, arrested him at the end of a short chase while they had to use force.

Transcript of the conversation between the assassins (Photo: Walla !, Walla!)

Suaed has been under arrest ever since.

The intensive investigation was conducted by a team led by Corporal Ayman Barakat at the Hof Sq.

"The Yishal police do everything and use all means against lawbreakers to prosecute them and bring them behind bars," Barakat said upon filing the prosecutor's statement against Suaed.

But the two assassins got away in the vehicle in which their driver was waiting for them, and the three evaporated and meanwhile roamed free.

During the interrogation, Suaed was silent.

Police say investigative and technological tools led to the collection of a variety of evidence that provided an evidentiary basis for deciphering the murder.

For example, incriminating telephone conversations between Muhammad Suaed and one "Saleh" were intercepted by the police, both at the time of the attempted murder and at the time of the murder.

Security cameras, most of them from the Haifa Municipality's "City without Violence" project, documented the organization, running to the car and the fatal shooting.

Brigadier General Barakat. Head of the investigation team (Photo: screenshot, Israel Police)

Adv. Tomer Naveh, defense attorney for Muhammad Suaed (Photo: Yoav Itiel)

At the request of the police, Muhammad Su'ad's detention was extended several times in the Magistrate's Court in Haifa for about 40 days, with the approval of the Attorney General, due to the length of the investigation.

He is now charged with aggravated murder, attempted murder, weapons offenses and destruction of evidence.

If convicted, he could face life in prison.

He has previously served time in prison and at the same time as filing the indictment, prosecutor Anat Steinschnid is requesting the Haifa District Attorney's Office to extend his detention until the end of the legal proceedings against him.

A hearing on the body of the request will take place, and in the meantime, Judge Nitzan Silman extended his detention until a different decision is made.

He noted that he can be identified in the camera videos.

"From the day of his arrest, we claim that there are evidentiary failures that are also clear to the State Attorney's Office, that this is a serious failure of non-intervention by the undercover unit of the Israel Police. The indictment reflects that he was not even present at the murder," he told Walla!

"In general, the whole incident took place under the watchful eye of the police surveillance unit, and if the detectives had been exposed they could have prevented it."

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