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Haim Atar following his arrest

Investigator deleted evidence in pedophile case

Though considered one of most serious pedophiles in Israeli history, investigator neglect may allow Haim Atar, indicted for raping nine boys, to be convicted of only three cases of sodomy and serve five years in prison as part of plea bargain. Hard drive with Atar's correspondences and pornographic pictures erased

Haim Atar, considered by the police to be one of the most serious pedophiles ever to attack in Israel, is likely to reach a plea bargain with the prosecution. As part of the deal, he will admit to three counts of consensual sodomy of minors and will serve a five year sentence.

 

Ynet has learned that the reason for this is that the police accidentally deleted the incriminating evidence.

 

Atar was arrested in February 2009 as a suspect in the case of a boy who was raped from an online dating site. Atar was convicted of nine counts of sodomy and lewd acts on children below the age of 14 and of sodomizing boys under the age of 16. The court cleared his name for publication at the behest of Ynet and the police.

 

The police first tagged him with carrying on sexual relations with 65 boys.

 

According to the updated indictment scheduled to be presented in Tel Aviv District Court Tuesday, Atar is being indicted of meeting a 14-year-old boy in January 2001 and regularly having consensual sexual relations with him in Atar's apartment. Five years later in 2006, Atar contacted another 14-year-old boy and had consensual sexual relations with him as well.

 

Between September 2004 and April 2005, Atar became acquainted with another 14-year-old boy through an online dating website. After a number of correspondences, Atar picked the boy up from his home and took him back to his apartment where, according to the indictment, he had consensual sex with the boy. In each of these cases, Atar is being indicted with acts of sodomy.

 

Technical difficulties

The main reason a plea bargain has been struck between the prosecution and between Atar's legal counsel is that a police investigator accidentally erased important evidence off of Atar's hard drive that was seized following his arrest. All of Atar's correspondences with the boys with whom he had sexual relations were saved on the hard drive along with pornographic pictures Atar had on his home computer.

 

Investigator Ronen Nizri wrote in a report of the deletion that he received Atar's hard drive in order to copy it onto a police hard drive. However, when the transfer process started, defects were discovered on the police drive and the process got "stuck." Further attempts to copy the hard drive to alternate devices also failed. Apparently, a mistake was made while trying to fix this problem and the material on Atar's hard drive was erased and replaced by the data on the police drive instead of vice versa.

 

Both the prosecution and the defense declined to comment on the case.

 

Threatened to reveal their sexual preferences

Atar was arrested as part of a rape case involving a boy from an online dating site. The boy, 13, claimed at the beginning of the year that he had forbidden sexual relations and participated in lewd acts over the course of two-and-a-half years with 13 men. The police apprehended many suspects, including some prominent public figures, who claimed they were unaware of the boy's real age.

 

The police managed to reach additional boys who fell victim to Atar's antics after a 15-year-old boy who had sexual relations with the suspects in the case said that he met Atar on an online dating site. The boys claimed that Atar threatened them that he would inform their families of their sexual orientation if they did not comply with his sexual demands.

 

The police tied Atar to 65 boys. However, the indictment painted a slightly different picture. According to the indictment, Atar surfed online homosexual dating sites since 2004 and would contact young boys with the objective of having sexual relations with them. He would present himself as being much younger than he really was.

 


פרסום ראשון: 10.19.09, 12:18
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