The state prosecution on Sunday filed an amended indictment against Roman Zadorov as part of a retrial of his conviction for the 2006 murder of eighth-grader Tair Rada.
An amended indictment was far from a foregone conclusion, following signals from both the Nazareth District Court and the Supreme Court that the judicial branch would rather see the case dropped.
In late August, the Supreme Court endorsed the earlier ruling of the Nazareth District Court to release Zadorov to house arrest after some 15 years in prison on the basis of new evidence that led to the retrial.
The new evidence relates to possible DNA in the bathroom area where Rada was killed that cannot be connected to Zadorov, as well as other details that challenge the prosecution’s narrative that led to the original conviction.
Despite the rebuke by the Supreme Court at the detention stage – if the court believed Zadorov was still guilty, it would probably view him as too dangerous to be released to house arrest – the prosecution has doubled down and indicated it will go the distance.
The prosecution could still obtain a conviction at retrial because it has gathered additional evidence to rebut the new evidence raised by the defense that the court has not fully seen.
More specifically, the prosecution said its amended indictment takes into account various changes in the criminal law since 2006 and includes new witnesses.
One key witness will be Olga Karvetzneko, who the Channel 12 television program Uvda has suggested could have been the real killer of Rada.
The prosecution will bring her as a witness to try to disprove this theory so that only Zadorov remains as Rada’s potential killer.
In 2016, the Supreme Court rejected one of Zadarov’s multiple appeals after ordering a retrial.
However, in 2016, Justice Yoram Danziger dissented from the conviction, and others expressed skepticism about the state prosecution’s case.
In December 2006, Rada was found stabbed to death in a bathroom stall at Katzrin’s Nofei Golan School in the Golan Heights.
Zadorov, the school custodian, was arrested less than a week later and was found guilty of 13-year-old Rada’s murder in September 2010.
The amended indictment continues to allege that Zadorov slit Rada’s throat in the bathroom.
The case captivated the Israeli media and public as a tragic small-town murder that from the beginning was dogged by rumors, including that local teenagers had killed Rada and that the town or teachers had covered it up, finding an easy fall guy in Zadarov, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union.