Two-weeks after death of Gadi Vichman, stabbed after asking teenagers to keep quiet, Idan Ohion, 19, indicted for murder.
By JOANNA PARASZCZUKpolice arrest handcuffs suspect cops criminal 311 (R)(photo credit: Benoit Tessier / Reuters)
Almost two weeks after father-of-two Gabi Vichman was stabbed to death outside his home in Beersheba, the Southern District Attorney’s Office on Thursday charged a man with his murder.Idan Ohion, 19, who was arrested after the incident alongside eight others, was also charged with carrying an illegal knife, obstruction of justice and suborning an investigation.On the night of the stabbing, the indictment said, Ohion and a group of his friends had gathered in a park close to Vichman’s apartment.With Ohion were his girlfriend - a minor identified only as M.H. – and Chen Harel, Lial Peretz and Or Mesika, the indictment alleges.Ohion carried a knife with him, the indictment said.According to the indictment, Ohion and his friends made a great deal of noise that disturbed the neighbors, and caused Vichman’s small daughter to wake repeatedly, although each time Vichman tried to help the child get back to sleep.At one point, Vichman’s partner, Michal, went out onto the family’s balcony overlooking the park and shouted at Ohion to keep the noise down – but when youths took no notice, the indictment said, Michal called the police.Later that night, Vichman went out onto his balcony and asked Ohion and his friends to be quiet.According to the indictment, Vichman told the youths that while there was no problem with them being in the park, they should be quieter because there were people living nearby.However, the indictment said, Ohion’s response was to curse Vichman, calling him a “son of a whore.”
After that, Michal called the police again, who told her they had already sent a patrol car to the scene.Meanwhile, Ohion and his friends continued to make a large amount of noise, and at one point Ohion spoke loudly on his cellphone with someone, cursing that person and telling him to come meet him at the park, the indictment alleges.A short while later, Vichman went back onto the balcony and told Ohion and his friends he was coming down. Michal told the youths that she had called the police, the indictment said.Allegedly, Ohion sat on a park bench, and cursed and shouted at Michal and Vichman.Ohion said the police could “suck” him, and that Vichman could come down to the bench and do the same, the indictment charges.“Let’s see you come down here,” Ohion allegedly said, continuing to shout obscenities referring to Vichman’s mother.At around 2:15 a.m., Vichman left his apartment, jumped over the fence separating his apartment block from the park and went over to Ohion and his friends.Michal, fearing what would happen to her partner if he approached the youths, shouted from the balcony for him to come back to the apartment.At that point, Ohion jumped up from the bench he was sitting on and began to walk towards Vichman, the indictment said, while his girlfriend M.H. told him to “drop it” and leave.However, when Ohion reached Vichman, Vichman head butted him, hitting his lips, the indictment said.Allegedly, the blow pushed Ohion back slightly, but the youth remained on his feet and moved towards Vichman, holding his knife.Ohion plunged the knife deep into Vichman’s chest, then made a cutting movement from left to right before pulling the knife out of Vichman's body, the indictment alleges.The indictment said that Vichman collapsed, blood pumping from his chest, as Michal watched from the balcony.Michal began screaming for help, but Ohion and his friends allegedly fled the scene leaving Vichman wounded on the ground.As he ran, Ohion threw the knife into a garbage can in an attempt to conceal evidence, the indictment said.Paramedics tried to resuscitate Vichman, but he died at the scene.The indictment said the stab wound in Vichman’s left chest was around 6-cm. deep and over 11-cm. wide, and that it seriously damaged his heart. He also had a stab wound on his left arm.A murder charge requires that a killing was premeditated, and the indictment alleges that Ohion deliberately killed Vichman in cold blood with no provocation, in circumstances in which he could think clearly and understand the consequences of his actions.Ohion did so, the indictment charges, after he had prepared himself to kill Vichman and prepared the means to kill him.As Vichman died, Ohion and his friends ran to Ohion’s house and from there to the home of Ohion’s girlfriend where they stayed until the morning, the indictment said.Ohion allegedly told his girlfriend that if the police should question her, she should lie to them and say he was with her at her home all the previous evening.Later that day, Ohion told his girlfriend that she should “watch her mouth” because she was “blabbing” too much, the indictment charges.With these actions, the indictment said, Ohion attempted to make his girlfriend give false information to police during an investigation.Together with the indictment, the district attorney also filed a request to remand Ohion in custody throughout the legal proceedings against him.
