Gay activist confesses to having sex with murder suspect
Barnoar founder Shaul Ganon admits to having sexual relations with young murder suspect, signs deal to become prosecution's witness. Ganon requests vague draft of his confession to reduce gay community's rage
Barnoar founder Shaul Ganon confessed in his investigation to having sexual relations with one of the 2009 shooting suspects: "I had sex with him, but did not know he was a minor," he admitted. According to the police, this established the motive for the three suspects to commit the gay youth center shooting in August 2009.
Following his confession, and after he accounted for where he had sex with the suspect who was 15 at the time, Ganon signed an deal to become a witness for the prosecution.
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Although the investigators had the state witness's testimony, as well as two taped confessions by Hagai Felician of committing the murder, they were still missing the motive. They arrested Ganon on suspicion of sodomy involving the second suspect (Felicien's relative), but knew that if he denied having relations with him, and the "victim" continues to stick to his version of having no connection to Ganon, they could not establish the grounds for an indictment.
Police put great pressure on Ganon to confess the relationship, and eventually reached a deal with him.
The investigators realized Ganon was very concerned about attitudes towards him within the gay community, fearing that confessing to having sexual relations with a minor would aggravate the turmoil around him, and requested to write a vague version of his confession.
Ganon after release from arrest (Photo: Motti Kimchi)
Police eventually reached an agreement with the prosecutor's office whereby Ganon will not be charged if he confessed to having relations without knowing the age of the boy.
Despite pessimistic estimates, and despite the great confidence shown by the suspects in the past few days, police are certain that they "cracked" the motive of the murder case. According to the agreement with Ganon, if and when an indictment will be filed, Ganon would testify about what had taken place between him and the suspect some four years ago.
Suspects confident, denying
Tel Aviv's Magistrate's Court remanded the three murder suspects by an additional week Sunday morning. The police investigator said the body of evidence tying Hagai Felician to the killings includes Facebook correspondence with the state witness and recorded conversations where he implicates himself, in addition to discussing drug and gun-related misdemeanors.
Murder suspects remanded (Photo: Motti Kimchi)
The youngest of the suspects, the alleged victim of molestation, keeps maintaining that he was not abused and said "no man has ever touched me." He added he was prepared to take a lie detector test to prove this.
Twenty-three-year-old Pardes Katz resident Hagai Felician is suspected of shooting two people dead. A 19-year-old relative of Felician and their associate Tarlan Hankishayev, both also residents of Pardes Katz, are suspected of assisting Felician.
Nir Katz, 26, and Liz Trubeshi, 16 were killed on August 1, 2009 when a veiled man entered the Barnoar LGBT youth center in Tel Aviv and began shooting at the people gathered there. Eleven others were injured.
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