Suspect would have been between 11 and 13 years old at the time police suspect he helped carry out the killings.
By BEN HARTMANPearlman 311(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
A day after a Petah Tikva court said there was not enough evidence to indict alleged Jewish terrorist Haim Pearlman, police and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) have reportedly arrested a fourth suspect they say helped Pearlman carry out four murders of Palestinian men in Jerusalem in the late-1990s, according to a legal organization representing Pearlman.The suspect is a 24-year-old resident of the West Bank settlement of Tekoa, where Pearlman, a 30-year-old father of three, once lived. The suspect would have been between 11 and 13 years old at the time police suspect he helped carry out the killings.News of the arrest first appeared on the Web site of Honenu, a legal defense organization that helps Israeli Jews involved in altercations with Arabs and is providing Pearlman’s defense. Police and the Shin Bet would not confirm the arrest.At a remand hearing held at the Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court on Monday, Judge Nahum Streinlicht denied a request to extend Pearlman’s remand by 12 days, agreeing instead to a two-day extension.Streinlicht said the 28 days Pearlman had already been in custody should have been enough to find evidence sufficient for an indictment.Shin Bet and Israel Police arrested Pearlman, a resident of Beit Rabban near Yavne, in July, as the main suspect in the stabbing deaths.Shortly after his arrest, associates gave Channel 2 audio recordings made by Pearlman, in which an alleged Shin Bet agent urged him to kill Raed Salah, the head of the Islamic Movement’s Northern Branch.Pearlman has contended that he was framed by the Shin Bet and that he had no connection to the murders.
