'Don't torture me' - Outside courthouse where Duma case heard
'Don't torture me' - Outside courthouse where Duma case heardFlash 90

In the wake of new evidence revealed in the Zadorov trial, the defense attorney for the central defendant in the Duma case called on the State Prosecutor's Office to review its position in the case.

"After we see the scandalous conduct in the Zadorov affair, I must say I'm not surprised," says Amiram Ben Uliel's lawyer Attorney Asher Ohayon.

"In the Duma file which I represent, Amiram Ben Uliel is charged based on an admission that was taken after he was interrogated under unbearable torture, the publication of which the court forbade because of their great severity," Ohayon recalls.

Following this, Ohayon calls on the State Attorney's Office to re-examine its position in the Duma case.

"I hope and expect that the State Prosecutor's Office will review itself in this case, that you not G-d forbid accuse an innocent of wrongdoing," adds Ohayon.

Thirteen-year-old Ta'ir Rada of Katzrin, in the Golan Heights, was found dead in a bathroom stall at the Nofey Golan high school on December 6, 2006. She had been brutally stabbed.

A construction worker who had been employed on the school grounds, Roman Zadorov, was charged with the murder and found guilty after he confessed to the murder. However, there have always been grave doubts among the Israeli public regarding his guilt, and speculation that the confession was forced.

In 2016, a documentary revealed the existence of a previously unknown suspect in the murder: A woman who lived in Katzrin at the time of the murder, and who suffers from severe mental problems.

Hair found on Rada's body was recently tested and found to match the DNA of a man who had been the Katzrin woman's boyfriend at the time of the murder. The boyfriend has an alibi for the time of the murder but it is believed that the woman was wearing his sweatshirt when she committed the crime.

In the Duma case, the Central District Court found that the defendants, Ben Uliel and another minor, were tortured during ISA interrogations. As a result of the torture, the court disqualified all confessions of the minor issued under torture and some of confessions issued under use of a force from Ben Uliel.

Recently, various activists have begun working to expose the "Duma plot". Michael Puah, a former resident of the Lower Galilee, an educator and social activist who served as Manhigut Yehudit director and adviser to Minister Kahlon at the Welfare Ministry, opened a Facebook page with others that has already accumulated hundreds of supporters called "the Duma Plot", as part of a struggle to prove Ben Uliel's innocence.

"The drama at the trial of Roman Zadorov shows us how the State Prosecutor's Office and police are prepared to whitewash an investigation and to put an innocent person in prison when public pressure is breathing down their necks. We also learn the low value of a confession drawn by mental pressure, all the more so when it comes to severe torture, as was the case with the investigation in the Duma plot," the activists wrote on the Facebook page.

"The concept led the police to ignore the hairs that were found at the scene and only under the pressure of the defense attorney, and after 12 years only three hairs were examined. The GSS decided that the fire in Duma was done by hilltop youths and avoided investigating other directions. Amiram's been in jail for three years, cut off from his little daughter and his wife for no fault of his own. It's time to let him go," they added.