In the video: Police officer Afik Toibi, accused of murdering his roommate Naim Madi (Photo: Yoav Ityel)
Police officer Afik Toibi, who is accused of murdering his roommate, police officer Naim Madi, with a shot from his service pistol, spoke publicly today for the first time since the incident at the Haifa District Court. The panel consisted of Judge Yehiel Lifshitz, and Judges Galit Ziegler and Shmuel Mandelbaum.
At the end of more than six hours, he left the impression of someone who does not hesitate to lie with a determined forehead, and admitted that he lied all the way to the investigators of the police investigation department. "Everything I told the investigators was my inventions.
I know I deserve punishment, but I want them to hear my side, what really happened." Regarding his multiple lies, which he continued throughout the investigations in detail, he said: "I was in a place where I no longer knew how to go back."
"Everything I told the researchers was my invention."
The accused in the murder of Afik Toibi in court, January 5, 2023 (Photo: Yoav Itiel)
But even today in court he got into trouble with his many explanations and versions.
Sometimes he thought for a long time before giving answers even to simple questions, repeated questions to buy more time, answered irrelevantly, and so sometimes the prosecutor had to ask him the same question three or four times.
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, repeatedly sipped water, and returned and looked to the side, to draw encouragement from his relatives who were sitting in the crowd, separated from the deceased's family members.
Even today Toibi continued to change his versions again and again until at the end of the day even the judges were puzzled.
"You managed to confuse us too," Judge Lifshitz told him, "Why does it take you so long to think? We wonder why you change versions once an hour."
In view of Toibi's version that it was an unfortunate accident during a routine unloading of weapons, the backbone of his line of defense, which prosecutor Ronen Yitzhak was able to challenge, Judge Lifshitz wondered, "Maybe this whole process of unloading is one big bluff?"
Six security guards from the Shavas "Nachshon" unit and the court guard surrounded Toibi when he took the witness stand. During his testimony, the late Naim's mother and father held hands and wept.
"I share in the family's grief," Toibi said at the beginning of his main investigation by His defense attorney, attorney Shadi Srouji, who represents him with attorneys Tami Ullman and Yaakov Shlomowitz. "It's difficult.
It was my best friend.
I was at his house and he was at my house.
I ask for forgiveness.
I did a bad thing.
I'm sorry.
I understand their pain."
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"The one who should decide on the credibility of the testimony is the honorable composition of the court."
Toibi's lawyer Tami Ullman (Photo: Yoav Ityel)
He excused his initial version that his roommate committed suicide, "I was hysterical, I was scared and stressed, I didn't know what was happening to me."
At one point Judge Mandelbaum asked, "The question is whether you would not actually have been much more of a cold-blooded calculation."
"I never fired a bullet. I don't remember being alerted to a safety malfunction," Toibi stated today.
About his friends from the unit who testified in the trial he said "they were my friends".
He admitted that after the tragic incident he put alcohol gel on his hands to distance himself, and not just for a good smell, or against the corona virus, or because of dirt from the weapons he collected from the team police officers at the request of his commanders, when they still thought they had something to do with suicide.
These are all previous versions of it for that matter.
He accepted Judge Lifshitz's interpretation that by saying "to distance himself", he meant that he would not be caught, that he would not be suspected, that he would not be accused.
"You went on with your life, I experienced trauma. I'm not a criminal. I didn't think of directing," he told the prosecutor.
But it turned out that a few hours after the incident, on Instagram, policeman Toibi uploaded a photo with the caption, "I can't believe how you did this to me", continuing the version of suicide he invented to distance himself from responsibility for his friend's death.
Today in court he did not know how to explain how he chose to inform the world about the tragic death of the fighter he shared a room with.
"How did you decide without a military doctor to tell the family"?
The plaintiff asked to find out.
"I made a mistake out of pain," Toibi replied, and then the prosecutor confronted him with his correspondence immediately afterwards, in which he flirted with "Lina", the police officer who responded, and asked her for details. It also turned out that during the interrogation on Saturday, in the cell, he sang and the prosecutor Dr. Ronen Yitzhak played a secret recording of himself from the cell.
"You say you were stressed and disorganized and you were singing?" asked the prosecutor.
"Each person reacts differently," was Toibi's answer.
"I experienced trauma, I'm not a criminal."
The cases in the district court in the trial of Afik Toibi (Photo: Yoav Itiel)
Before Toibi, Mein Levy-Kahana, the head of the police branch in the Hoof district, testified that at 01:30 that night, the commander of the mobile police laboratory informed her that "things don't add up to a suicide."
Her testimony revealed that, despite his attempts to disrupt it, Tuibi later told the voiceover "the whole".
Among other things, he gave many confidential details that at the time, just a few days after the event, were not even known to the investigators who were at the scene, including Levy-Kahana.
"Many investigative actions have been carried out and they all point in one direction," she said.
In his cross-examination in front of attorney Ronan Yitzhak Toibi said: "Procedure is something written on a page.
It is not always performed.
I can give you a list of laws that are not enforced in practice."
"All the behavior in the unit was inappropriate," stated Toibi.
"There was careless use of weapons. If it wasn't to besiege the weapon, playing with weapons, it was using the hands. It wasn't just me and Maddy who were playing with weapons. It was like that in the whole unit. I was another soldier in the system. I couldn't do anything about it. In our base there is no position Unloading. Unloading in the rooms. I'm sorry. Taking responsibility."
He tried to explain, "If you press the cartridge latch, the gun is not supposed to rake a bullet into the chamber while stepping. I did all the actions to prevent that from happening. To this day, I don't understand how it happened."
"I should have taken responsibility for it from the beginning," he said today.
"Then I didn't have the courage. I didn't understand what was happening. I turned to my lawyers and my family to take this matter to the experts. I didn't want this result, which is very difficult for me. If I could turn back time, this is what I would do. I have one request. I was not indifferent and I ask that I be judged for what I said, not for what is said in the media or the press that destroys the name. I am sorry for a grave mistake in saying that he committed suicide. I hurt his dignity. I was under pressure with a storm of emotions. All I wanted was to escape from this place. I did all the actions that It won't happen. I don't understand to this day how it happened. I shouted."
"In front of the dubbing I told the truth"
"The deceased was in bed. A blanket on him. I didn't look at him. I wanted to unload the gun. I don't remember where his hands were. He was leaning half-lying, half-sitting. I got closer, put the gun on his stomach and went out to call someone. The first thing I did was call for help to my friend. In seconds I did it," said during the cross-examination of the prosecutor, attorney Ronen Yitzhak, but he could not explain why he was busy placing the gun on the chest of his blood-drinking friend. "I wanted to see where the bullet hit him," he tried explain.
Judge Mandelbaum asked: "You could have put the gun, for example, on the top bed, why on his chest?" Toibi answered: "I don't have a clear answer to that." He repeated his version time and time again that he does not remember whether he placed the gun on His friend before or after he saw if the friend was drinking blood. "Why does it even matter if I put it on the chest or near the leg," Toibi allegedly wondered.
"In front of the dubbing, I told the truth," Tuibi insisted, "I didn't know he was dubbing. I felt he was my friend. I actually consulted with him. I asked him, 'What do you say I should tell my lawyers?' , I pressed small pressures on the trigger. This is the order of operations, that a bullet would not be drawn into the chamber. Until today, I was sure that there was no bullet. I could have aimed it at my family that way."
It was obvious that this explanation turned on a red light for the judges.
Judge Lifshitz: "There is a basic question, why did you even decide that you had to unload? Maybe you shouldn't have unloaded the weapon at all? We haven't heard from any of your friends in the unit."
Judge Lifshitz added, "Maybe what you did was not discharge at all? What did you say to him 'look look'. What is the internal logic? When you were brushing your teeth you also told him 'look look'? Maybe you wanted to show him something?".
"Evidence is saturated with a significant number of false versions."
The representative of the murdered family, Adv. Assi Piso (photo: courtesy of the photographers)
"Today we heard the defendant's testimony, which has not yet ended and we can already see that it is a testimony that is saturated with a significant number of contradictory and false versions, which not only proved his unreliability, but also strengthened the prosecution's evidence against him," said Lavala, attorney Assi Piso, who represents the Madi family on behalf of the Ministry of Justice's SNA program, "We have no doubt that he should be convicted of the crime of murder with indifference attributed to him in the indictment, and this is in addition to other crimes to which he has already confessed in court."
"The court has heard Afik's version. The one who has to decide on its credibility or unreliability is the honorable composition of the court," Lavala said in reference to attorney Tami Ullman, who represents Afik Toibi, with lawyers Shadi Srouji and Yaakov Shlomowitz. "We We will wait patiently for the verdict."
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