Tel Aviv pub shooter's week on the run
The interrogation of the three suspected of aiding terrorist Nashat Melhem shed light on what happened while the Dizengoff attacker was hunted by the entire country: Buying pot and cigarettes, planning to commit another attack in Afula, freely walking around Arara, and the moment the Shin Bet and police were meters away from where he was hiding, and didn't know.
It was only two days after terrorist Nashat Melhem was killed outside his hiding place in Arara that his cousin, Amin Melhem, started cooperating with investigators. It happened on Sunday, January 10, after six days in custody, during which he denied having met with Nashat and helping him hide after the latter committed the terror attack on Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv. Chief Inspector Tal Hazan from the Investigations Department at the Tel Aviv Police District was the one questioning him, making notes of the interrogation. He likely hit his forehead in frustration when he heard how, while the entire Police force and the Shin Bet were chasing after the terrorist with all the special measures at their disposal, he chose to hide behind a storage space in Arara and make catlike sounds.
"It was two days after the attack, at about 8:30-9pm," Amin told the interrogator. "All of a sudden I heard 'psst psst psst' from the storage space near my house. I went there and saw Nashat. Truthfully, I was surprised. He asked me for pot and for my shoes. He also asked for a Koran. He was wearing a black and red Adidas shirt and told me 'look,' and showed me bloodstains on the shirt. He told me he committed the terror attack in Tel Aviv and also killed another person, an Arab.
"Honestly, when I saw him like that, I was afraid of him. I got him whatever he asked. He asked me for food and I got him some. He asked me to open the house across the street from mine, which was abandoned and belonged to an old woman who's at the hospital. He watched me with his weapon and I went and opened the window of the abandoned house and he went in through the window."
On January 1 Nashat Melhem, 29, left his home in 'Ara armed with an Italian-made "Falcon" submachine gun. A friend from Arara drove him to Tel Aviv without knowing that he intended to commit a terror attack. Several hours after he arrived in the city, Melhem opened fire at the Simta bar on Dizengoff Street, murdering Alon Bakal and Shimon Ruimi. After he escaped the scene, he got into the taxi of Amin Shaban from Lod. Melhem murdered Shaban in northern Tel Aviv, not far from the Mandarin Hotel. Security forces searched for him for a week, until he was killed by the YAMAM fighters who cornered him at his hiding place in Arara.
While the extensive manhunt for Melhem was ongoing, the Shin Bet and the police conducted an intensive investigation to find the people who aided him. This investigation resulted in an indictment filed two weeks ago against three residents of Arara. The charges against Amin Melhem, the main defendant, Ayoob Rashid and Mohammed Melhem, are of accessory after the fact, conspiring to aid an enemy during wartime, and cover-up. These are serious charges that carry punishments of many years in prison.
The investigation's protocols are fascinating. If it hadn't been for the tragic death of three innocent civilians, these protocols could've been read as a grotesque comedy: The terrorist abandoned the taxi because he could not release the hand brake and clumsily drove over spikes. He bought pot the night of the attack, but two days later he had already smoked all he had and wanted more. But that's nothing. The protocols reveal that the Shin Bet and the police arrived in Amin Melhem's house as early as the night between Monday and Tuesday, and arrested him for questioning because of intelligence that pointed to him as aiding his cousin hide. While the forces were arresting Amin, the terrorist was staying in the house across the street, only several meters away from them, and they were non-the-wiser about it.
'Everyone saw him'
During the investigation, Shin Bet and police interrogators learned that the rumor about Nashat Melhem hiding in Arara went by word of mouth, but each of those who heard that rumor said the person who told them about it was boastful and not serious. At least that's what many of the Arara residents who were questioned under caution told the police.
Nashat himself wandered almost freely in his childhood neighborhood in Arara, al-Daharat, with the extent of his efforts to hide being putting up the hood of his sweatshirt.
He felt so safe there that in one of his outings he went to the grocery store and called to employee Ayoob Rashid through the back door, asking him to bring him cigarettes. Rashid asked him for the money for pay for the cigarettes and Nashat told him to tell the store owner the cigarettes were for him, "put it on my tab." The owner of the store did not believe Rashid when he told him the terrorist from the Dizengoff attack, the one being hunted by the entire country, was outside his store. Eventually, the owner put the cost of the two packs of cigarettes on Rashid's tab.
Mohammed Melhem, the third defendant, said he heard that Nashat was seen at the entrance to the village on the very night after the attack "and all of the people at the café at the entrance to the village saw him." The testimony collected and the investigation conducted did not confirm this rumor.
Rashid was arrested on Friday morning, January 8. Later that day, Nashat Melhem's hiding place was found and he was shot dead while trying to escape. Rashid, 23, came to the police station with his father to report the terrorist's whereabouts. After he filed his report, investigators informed him he was under arrest. It turns out that on Monday, January 4, around 9pm, Rashid went to visit Mohammed Melhem, Nashat's cousin, who lives close to him. On his way over, Rashid met Nashat at a public park. The terrorist called Rashid over, and asked him to buy cigarettes for him, giving him a NIS 100 bill. Rashid bought the cigarettes for him, but when he returned to the park, Nashat was no longer there. The next evening, Rashid returned to the park and half an hour later Nashat came and took the cigarettes.
The next day Nashat arrived, wearing a coat and his hood up, to the grocery store Rashid works in and asked him for two packs of cigarettes and for NIS 2,000. He got cigarettes, but not the money. When Rashid was asked why he didn't report this to police he said, "I was afraid he'd kill me."
Mohammed, 23, was arrested after Nashat was killed. He worked as a cook at an Asian restaurant in Pardes Hanna and on the day of the attack he was at work. At night, when he returned to the village, a friend told him who it was that committed the terror attack in Tel Aviv. He says that during that weekend he met Rashid, who told him he bought cigarettes for Nashat. The dates don't match the facts listed in the indictment, and it appears all of the suspects got their timings confused during their interrogations. In any case, Mohammed said in his interrogation that on Sunday he met Amin Melhem and told him what Rashid said. "Amin was in shock, he could not believe what he was hearing."
Amin, 24, married and a father of a nine-months-old baby, is recognized by the state as 100 percent disabled. He lives off a stipend he receives from the National Insurance Institute. To pass the time, he goes to his father's auto shop every day, where he does general tasks like cleaning. He, his wife and their baby live in his parents' house, on the ground floor, at a unit with a separate entrance. His first interrogation by the Shin Bet happened shortly after 1am on January 5, Tuesday. He was asked where Nashat was and said he had no idea. He was told that the Shin Bet knew that he, Amin, was aware of where Nashat was hiding, but Amin kept denying that he did. When he was asked when the last time he saw Nashat was, Amin said he did not remember and that he was sure it was not after the terror attack.
It was only after six days of intensive interrogation, and only after the terrorist was killed, that Amin started telling the truth: "He was standing with his back to the storage space's wall and aiming his weapon at me while I went to open the window for him. He told me 'if anyone finds out about me, I'll kill your wife, your son, and you.' He went inside and asked me to bring him pot and food. He asked for falafel. After that he told me, 'Don't come over and don't get near me. Just knock on the window and put the stuff there for me.'"
Later on in the interrogation, Amin said that Nashat told him, "'When you bring me the food and the pot, don't call my name, call me Na'al, and knock on the window.'" Why Na'al, the interrogator wanted to know. "I don't know," Amin answered. "I went, I got him falafel, one serving with a can of Cola. I gave him my shoes, I took them off my feet and gave them to him."
Interrogator: "When you saw Nashat, how did you react?"
Amin: "I embraced him and asked him why he would do these things. He told me, 'I've done a lot of bad things, I want to be a Muslim.'"
Interrogator: "But he was a Muslim."
Amin: "I mean, he wanted to be a shahid (martyr). I told him this wasn't the way for you and your parents. They don't deserve this. He didn't respond."
'Make coffee, Nashat's in the storage space'
Amin bought the falafel at Abu Mouyib's kiosk at the entrance to Arara. Even before that, he got Nashat a Koran and dates. He went to buy the pot for Nashat at Kafr Qara. But even before the shopping spree, Amin went to visit Mohammed Melhem, his relative and neighbor. "I told him, 'Make a pot of coffee, Nashat is in my storage space.' Mohammed made coffee and came with me. Nashat asked him for a phone and Mohammed went to buy him one. He got Nashat a phone that cost NIS 150 from a store in Arara."
Interrogator: "Why did Nashat want a phone?"
Amin: "He wanted to threaten Netanyahu."
Interrogator: "What did he tell you happened after the attack?"
Amin: "He ran away from there and shouted at people 'there's a terror attack there' so they don't think it was him. He told me he hid the weapon under his shirt and that he got on an Arab man's taxi and got to Tel Baruch with him. He told me that Arab started talking to him in Hebrew and that he wanted to call the police and Nashat told him, 'haram (pity), I'm also a Muslim.' And then the taxi driver resisted and Nashat shot him.
"And then Nashat escaped and took the taxi, but he didn't know how to release the Mercedes' hand brake. He drove with the hand brake up. He told me he left skid marks on the road and then he drove into a one-way street, punctured the tires on spikes, and escaped on foot. He went on a bus to Netanya. In Netanya he changed buses and went to Kafr Qara. This whole time he was wearing the clothes he wore when he committed the attack and hid the weapon. After he got to Kafr Qara, he went to buy pot and then came to me."
Interrogator: "Did Nashat tell you where he stayed the night on Friday and Saturday before you met him on Sunday night?"
Amin: "He told me that one night he slept at his father's abandoned house and the other night he slept in the woods above his father's old house."
Interrogator: "What else did you talk about?"
Amin: "He told me he wanted to commit another attack in Afula, because there's a lot of alcohol there and that's against Islam. I told him, 'Don't, it's far away.'"
Amin Melhem told his interrogators that he proposed Mahane Shmonim (Camp 80, an IDF boot camp base) instead of Afula, "because it was closer." He himself, he said, planned on committing an attack there. When he was asked why, he said he planned an attack because of a traffic ticket he got from a police officer, which resulted in his license being revoked. "And besides, I know the Camp 80 junction," he said. "Because I used to go to Falafel Dvorah, not far from there, next to the vehicle licensing bureau." Later in his questioning, he claimed that he didn't really want to commit a terror attack and said, "It's because my illness is like this, sometimes I don't know what I'm saying."
Amin kept claiming, over and over again, that he was afraid of Nashat. Arara's "odd duck," who was dismissed by everyone before having committed the attack, has all of a sudden turned into a threatening, larger than life figure. In his interrogation on January 23, interrogator Staff Sergeant Major Viachslev Revayev from the Tel Aviv Police's Central Unit, told him: "I'm telling you that any normal person would do this, report to the police if a terrorist that the entire country is looking for contacted him, what do you say to that?"
Amin: "I was afraid he will escape the police and then murder me and my wife. I was afraid he will escape again, like he escaped from Tel Aviv. He told me he had 30 bullets, 'all of the bullets I have I will shoot you.'"
At the end of one of his interrogation sessions, Amin asked his interrogators to either put him on house arrest for life, or alternatively send him to the Sha'ar Menashe mental hospital, "as long as you don't leave me in prison because it's very hard for me here." His interrogators did not respond, but noted his request.
"This is a defendant with a background of mental issues from a young age, who takes medicine, is unstable, and lives off a disability stipend. Everything he did - he did out of fear and concern for the wellbeing of his family and baby son," said Amin Melhem's attorney, Ali Saadi. "In his confessions he repeatedly says that Nashat threatened him with his weapon and it's clear that he was under great fear."
Mohammed Melhem's lawyer, Adal Buyrat, said: "My client has no criminal past and in his interrogations by the Shin Bet and police he confirmed that he gave the terrorist a cellphone out of fear he will hurt him and his family. These are circumstances in which the necessity defense applies, according to which a person will not have criminal liability over an act he was forced to do under threat."
"My client came to the police station out of his own volition and immediately became a suspect, despite the fact that the information he provided allowed for Nashat Melhem's elimination," said attorney Jamil Hattib, who represents Ayoob Rashid. "My client's part in the affair is limited to one meeting and providing Nashat with cigarettes, all out of fear for his life. At the Ma'ale Iron police station, my client underwent torture during his interrogation which led to a false confession."
