Kirilik: Why make a big deal over murder of entire family?
Oshrenko murder suspect
By JPOST.COM STAFFoshrenko family funeral 248 88(photo credit: Benjamin L. Hartman)
"I don't understand why you are so overwrought over the murder of an entire family," the alleged murderer of the Oshrenko family Dimitry (Damien) Kirilik said during his interrogation. According to Kirilik, "It's not such a big deal in Russia."
On Tuesday, Kirilik's attorney Uri Keinan denied the allegations against him, claiming the confession was extracted from his client by force following four days of illegal torture.
In response, Central Police District head Cmdr. Nissim Mor said, "There are almost no holes in the [Oshrenko] case," referring to Kirilik's unrepentant admission that he had wanted to get revenge on the family after being fired from his job as head waiter at an Oshrenko-owned establishment.
Kirilik has been in police custody for several days on suspicion of having perpetrated one of the worst multiple homicides in Israel's history - the brutal stabbing of six members of the family in their Rishon Lezion home.
According to police, during the investigation, Kirilik's parents confronted him and urged him to confess. Reportedly, interrogators said they had also tried to appeal to Kirilik's sense of vanity by telling him that such a high-profile homicide case would be taught at universities for years. The suspect finally told the police of the burning humiliation he had suffered at the hands of Dimitry Oshrenko, recounting in detail his determination to kill his former employer, an act for which he had prepared two months in advance.
Police assessed that the suspect - who was wanted for armed robbery in Russia before immigrating to Israel in 2004 - was a sane man with a cruel streak.
"I killed them all," he reportedly said.
Kirilik, a Taekwondo expert and former ice hockey player, was determined to avenge the insult to his honor, police believe. "For him, it was a way to be in a position of power again," assessed criminologist Orit Messer-Har'el in an interview with Army Radio on Tuesday.
Police said Kirilik and his wife both made full confessions. On October 27, Kirilik reenacted the murder for officers.
According to police, Kirilik had first strangled the baby Natanel, then stabbed him. Reportedly, during the reenactment at the site of the murder, Kirilik kneeled, remorseful, before the baby's bed. "I don't believe in his remorse," said Mor on Tuesday.
Speaking on October 28 outside of a Ramle court, after Kirilik's father was remanded in custody, Keinan accused police of "exploiting the gag order to hold Kirilik in illegal conditions. For days on end he has been handcuffed to his cell bed. Police placed him on suicide watch."
The attorney refused to address the police's suspicions against his client, saying he needed to study the case material, which only became accessible to him after the lifting of the gag order on Monday.
Cmdr. Mor, however, was adamant that "the investigation was conducted lawfully."
