Hamas operative to be indicted for murdering prison guard in West Bank - report

Hamas operative Ibrahim Mansor is expected to be indicted by a military prosecutor's office on Tuesday for the murder of prison guard Yohai Avni in his apartment in the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council, Ynet reported on Monday.

Mansor said that he did not plan Avni's murder before carrying it out, but was found lying about that in a polygraph test the day before the indictment is supposed to be filed, Ynet learned. In his version of the investigations, he claimed that it was a burglary he committed of an apartment that got him into trouble and that he did not plan the murder, which happened last month. The findings of the investigation also show that Mansur walked around the town armed with a knife shortly before the murder.

The Institute of Forensic Medicine stated that Avni was stabbed 66 times in all parts of his body. His family warns that they will approach the High Court of Justice if his murder is not defined as a terrorist attack, but the Ynet report states that terrorism will not be among the charges against Mansor.

The bereaved family insisted on the importance that the indictment be filed and added that any amendment or examination after that would cause them additional mental and legal torture, according to Ynet.

Accused was caught lying

"The findings of the investigation negate the murderer's criminal version and show that he stabbed the late Yohai Avni no less than 66 times all over his body," Ynet quoted Attorney Rochberger as saying. "This figure is incompatible with his claim that his attempt was only to thwart any resistance to him committing a burglary and escaping from the scene. 

"The appalling number of stab wounds and the fact that the brutal stab wounds are scattered all over the body of the deceased clearly indicate an unusually serious hate crime, suitable for the fact that the victim was a Jew who served in the Israel Prison Service when his uniform was visible in the apartment."

Avni's family also demanded that the Palestinian Authority meet with them so they could receive investigation materials in order to appeal the decision not to attribute terrorism as a motive for the murder.