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30 mrt 2004
Tests carried out on hotel body
Police are awaiting the results of further tests to establish the cause of death of a man found dead in a central London hotel.
The eastern European man, who was in his 40s, was discovered at the Marriott Hotel, near Oxford Street, on Sunday.
Detectives found the body after police at a Eurostar terminal in Kent came across bloody clothes and documents from the four-star hotel.
The exact cause of death is not known, but a murder inquiry is under way.
A post-mortem examination has been carried out, but a spokesman for Scotland Yard said officers were awaiting the results of further tests.
The man is thought to have checked into the hotel under a false identity.
1 apr 2004
Man found dead in hotel is named
Police believe Yermia Yunataev was strangled or suffocated
A man found murdered in his room at a top London hotel has been named.
Yermia Yunataev, thought to have been in his 40s, was killed in a room on the seventh floor of the Marriott Hotel in central London last Sunday.
His body was only discovered after bloody clothes and documents were found dumped at a Eurotunnel terminal in Kent.
Post-mortem tests failed to establish how he died but police believe he was probably strangled or suffocated.
They are investigating the possibility that he was the victim of a "hit" carried out by an international drug or organised crime gang.
Detectives said Mr Yunataev was believed to have had an Israeli passport, although he is also thought to have checked into the hotel under a false name.
Police said he arrived at the hotel at 0905 BST on Sunday in a black cab and went into the bar area until 0950 BST before going to the hotel lift.
A police spokesman said: "We need to speak with anyone who knew Mr Yunataev.
"We also need the driver of the black cab that dropped him at the hotel to come forward."
2 apr 2004
Hotel murder police go to Israel
Police believe Yermia Yunataev was strangled or suffocated
Police investigating the murder of a man at a hotel in central London are to travel to Israel.
Yermia Yunataev, thought to have been in his 40s, was killed in a room on the seventh floor of the Marriott Hotel last Sunday.
His body was discovered after bloody clothes and documents were found dumped at a Eurotunnel terminal in Kent.
Post-mortem tests failed to establish how he died but police believe he was probably strangled or suffocated.
They are investigating the possibility that he was the victim of a "hit" carried out by an international drug or organised crime gang.
Detectives said Mr Yunataev was believed to have had an Israeli passport, although he is also thought to have checked into the hotel under a false name.
Police said he arrived at the hotel at 0905 BST on Sunday in a black cab and went into the bar area until 0950 BST before going to the hotel lift.
A police spokesman said: "We need to speak with anyone who knew Mr Yunataev."
Police are also keen to trace the driver of the black cab which dropped him at the hotel.
6 apr 2004
CCTV clue in hotel murder probe
Simon Turkov (right) was last seen on CCTV as he left the casino. Police are anxious to speak to the man on the left
Police have released CCTV images of a man who may have been the victim of a gangland "hit" by a drugs gang.
The body of Yermia Yunataev, an Israeli in his 40s, was found in a room at the Marriott Hotel, central London, at 2030 BST on 28 March.
CCTV footage shows Mr Yunataev walking with a white man in Gloucester Road, South Kensington, at about 0340 BST, after leaving the Grosvenor Casino.
It is thought Mr Yunataev may have links to the Israeli underworld.
Detectives believe Mr Yunataev may have been murdered by organised criminals, possibly as a result of a drugs deal which went wrong.
Gangland violence has been hitting the headlines in Mr Yunataev's native Israel.
In December two people were killed by an explosion, thought by police to have been aimed at a local figure from the criminal underworld.
Bloody clothes
Police believe Yermia Yunataev was strangled or suffocated
Police say Mr Yunataev was probably strangled and an inquest, opened and adjourned at Westminster Coroner's Court on 1 April, gave the provisional cause of death as asphyxiation.
The discovery came after bloody clothes and documents from the hotel were found dumped at a Eurotunnel terminal in Kent.
Detectives earlier flew to Israel as part of the investigation after being initially baffled as to Mr Yunataev's identity.
He was believed to have had an Israeli passport but is thought to have checked into the hotel under a false name.
The first CCTV image released shows Mr Yunataev after he left the casino, walking along Gloucester Road north towards Cromwell Road, at about 0345 BST on 28 March.
A second image shows him, at the same time and location, with another man.
The other man is described as white, aged about 35, with receding hair.
Police appeal
Mr Yunataev arrived at the Marriott Hotel just after 9am in a black Comcab.
He stayed in the hotel bar for about 45 minutes before taking the hotel lift.
His body was found in his room on the seventh floor later that day.
Police have urged the man in the CCTV images and the black cab driver to come forward.
8 apr 2004
Hotel murder man had 'two names'
Simon Turkov (right) was last seen on CCTV as he left the casino. Police are anxious to speak to the man on the left
A man who was murdered at a central London hotel is now believed to have been known by a second name.
Detectives said the man, who was killed in a room of the Marriott Hotel, near Oxford Street last month, was known as Simon Turkov and Yermia Yunataev.
His body was found after bloody clothes and documents from the hotel were found dumped at a Kent Eurotunnel terminal.
Mr Yunataev, 45, is believed to have had links with the Dorset area. An inquest was adjourned until 21 April.
Israeli passport
On Tuesday, CCTV footage was released of Mr Yunataev walking with a white man in Gloucester Road, South Kensington, at about 0340 BST on 28 March, after leaving the Grosvenor Casino.
Detectives have flown to Israel as part of the investigation after being initially baffled as to Mr Yunataev's identity.
He was believed to have had an Israeli passport, but is thought to have checked into the hotel under a false name.
Police say Mr Yunataev was probably strangled.
An inquest, opened and adjourned at Westminster Coroner's Court on 1 April, gave the provisional cause of death as asphyxiation.
7 juni 2004
Israel struggles to keep lid on crime
These guns and ammunition were seized by Israeli police in March 2004
In the last four years the Israeli police, struggling to stem the wave of Palestinian suicide bombings, have lost control of the country's organised criminals, who are making millions from gambling, prostitution and drugs.
But the deaths of nine innocent civilians in crossfire between gangsters over the last year has forced the fight against organised crime back on the political agenda.
Organised crime has become a booming industry in Israel in the last decade.
One former Israeli police chief, Asaf Heretz, claimed recently $2.5bn in "dirty money" had been invested in Israel in recent years.
Israeli gangsters have also spread their tentacles far and wide, with interests in the United States, Russia, South Africa and the Netherlands. A recent murder in London suggests they are also moving into the UK.
In March an Israeli criminal who had absconded from jail was found murdered in a London hotel room.
The body of Simon Turkov, who used the alias Yermia Yunataev, was discovered in a room at the Marriott Hotel in central London.
He was last seen leaving a casino in South Kensington with another man. Both were caught on CCTV camera but Scotland Yard have so far been unable to trace the other man.
Detectives believe Turkov's killer fled the country almost immediately on a Eurostar train.
Turkov had served two years in Israel's Solomon prison for attempting to smuggle 100,000 ecstasy tablets into the country from Egypt but he vanished while on weekend leave and came to Britain on false documents.
As police in London try to work out the motive for Turkov's murder, their colleagues in Israel are struggling to keep a lid on the growing vice in their country.
A gangland war in Israel last year culminated in December when three people were killed by a bomb in Tel Aviv.
Sixth assassination attempt
Simon Turkov was known by a number of aliases
The explosion was initially thought to be the work of Palestinians but it soon emerged the target was in fact a leading figure in the Israeli underworld, who we can only refer to as Mr Z for legal reasons.
It was the sixth unsuccessful attempt on his life.
One of Mr Z's friends is a former Israeli Energy Minister, Gonen Segev, who is awaiting trial accused of trying to smuggle 32,000 ecstasy tablets disguised as M&M chocolates into Israel from the Netherlands.
Mr Z's group, based in Tel Aviv, is understood to be involved in a war with a rival crime family, based in Jerusalem and led by Mr X and his brother.
The dispute is said to be over the lucrative trade in flying gamblers from Israel - where gambling is illegal - to casinos in Eastern Europe.
Mr X is reportedly supported by two brothers, while Mr Z has the implicit support of a crime family from Netanya.
Earlier this week police arrested four suspects for the December 2003 bombing, one of whom, Golan Avitan, was reportedly "one of the most senior figures in the Israeli underworld".
Mr Z's lawyer told BBC News Online her client had gone straight since leaving prison in 1982 and was nowadays a legitimate businessman.
She said: "He knows he was the target of the December bombing but he doesn't know who was behind it or why anyone would want to kill him. He is just trying to live his life as well as he can."
Illegal gambling is widespread in Israel. Until a recent clampdown gambling boats used to sail out into the Red Sea from Eilat.
In August 2002 Israeli gang boss Felix Abutbul was gunned down outside a casino he owned in Prague.
Israeli National Police spokesman Gil Kleiman said organised criminals were also heavily involved in loan sharking, extortion, money laundering, prostitution and drug smuggling.
'Attempts to infiltrate establishment'
Three people were killed in Tel Aviv in December in a gangland bombing
He said: "We do not have organised crime in Israel. We have criminals who are organised."
"The difference is that with organised crime there is an infiltration of the establishment. There have been attempts to gain control of politicians in Israel but so far they have been unsuccessful."
Mr Kleiman said: "There is no question that when (the intifada) began in September 2000 a lot of police manpower and resources was diverted to saving lives from terrorism.
"Detectives who would have been following up crime files were taken off to investigate the suicide bombings, which were happening almost daily."
But he said December's bomb attack in Tel Aviv was a "watershed" and the Interior Minister, Tzahi Hanegbi, and Police Commissioner, Shlomo Aharonishki, declared war on the organised criminals.
Mr Kleiman said new legislation has been introduced in the last two years to crack down on money laundering and the trafficking of people, especially women from Eastern Europe who are sent to work in Israeli brothels.
But as the heat builds up back home, there are indications Israeli gangsters are becoming more and more involved in trafficking drugs - especially ecstasy and amphetamines - abroad, especially to the United States.
Israeli organised crime syndicates have reportedly set their sights on Las Vegas, where there is a high demand for drugs such as ecstasy and cocaine.
Ecstasy smuggling
Eighteen people were injured in December's bomb attack
Last month the US Drug Enforcement Administration in Los Angeles charged several alleged members of the so-called Jerusalem Network with laundering money from the proceeds of smuggling millions of dollars worth of ecstasy into the US.
Gabriel Ben Harosh, 39, allegedly Mr X's right-hand man, was recently arrested in Toronto, Canada, and is now awaiting extradition to the US.
Mr X was named in a DEA affidavit, which BBC News Online has obtained, as having met Ben Harosh and others at a meeting in Florida which ended with a man being ordered to sign over his house as collateral for an unpaid drug debt.
The DEA affidavit also names 47-year-old Sasson Barashy, who is in custody in Israel in connection with the alleged embezzlement of $60m from an Israeli bank.
The affidavit claims Ben Harosh used another Israeli, Hai Waknine, to launder money through a car dealership.
The money was allegedly the proceeds of ecstasy trafficking, illegal gambling and embezzlement.
DEA agents tapped phone calls which were made in English, French, Hebrew and Arabic (many of those involved being Moroccan-born Sephardic Jews).
One of Ben Harosh's alleged accomplices, Micha Aslan, was murdered in Israel in June last year when he went to collect a debt.
Police in London are wondering whether Turkov's death was also related to his drug smuggling activities.
Simon Turkov (right) was last seen on CCTV as he left the casino
Detective Chief Inspector Julian Worker, who is leading the inquiry into the murder of Simon Turkov, told BBC News Online: "His antecedents and his connections to organised crime in Israel are at the forefront of my mind but I am keeping an open mind as to the motive for his murder."
He said: "It may have been a settling of scores, or it may have related to a new deal he was working on. We just don't know. But I am getting a much better picture about the events on the day he died."
If the answer to Turkov's killing lies in Israel then the chances of solving the case may be slim.
Israeli mafia incidents
May 2004: Former Energy Minister Gonen Segev charged with trafficking 30,000 ecstasy tablets
Apr 2004: DEA charges several Israelis with drug trafficking and money laundering
March 2004: Drug trafficker Simon Turkov murdered in London
Dec 2003: Three killed in Tel Aviv bombing but alleged gang boss Mr Z survives
Nov 2003: Belfast-born Hazel Crane shot dead in South Africa as she prepared to give evidence against alleged mafia boss Lior Saat
Jun 2003: Former Jerusalem underworld boss Micha Aslan shot dead in the resort of Eilat
Feb 2000: Body of Shai Avissar, head of Israeli mafia in South Africa, found in a shallow grave.
Tests carried out on hotel body
Police are awaiting the results of further tests to establish the cause of death of a man found dead in a central London hotel.
The eastern European man, who was in his 40s, was discovered at the Marriott Hotel, near Oxford Street, on Sunday.
Detectives found the body after police at a Eurostar terminal in Kent came across bloody clothes and documents from the four-star hotel.
The exact cause of death is not known, but a murder inquiry is under way.
A post-mortem examination has been carried out, but a spokesman for Scotland Yard said officers were awaiting the results of further tests.
The man is thought to have checked into the hotel under a false identity.
1 apr 2004
Man found dead in hotel is named
Police believe Yermia Yunataev was strangled or suffocated
A man found murdered in his room at a top London hotel has been named.
Yermia Yunataev, thought to have been in his 40s, was killed in a room on the seventh floor of the Marriott Hotel in central London last Sunday.
His body was only discovered after bloody clothes and documents were found dumped at a Eurotunnel terminal in Kent.
Post-mortem tests failed to establish how he died but police believe he was probably strangled or suffocated.
They are investigating the possibility that he was the victim of a "hit" carried out by an international drug or organised crime gang.
Detectives said Mr Yunataev was believed to have had an Israeli passport, although he is also thought to have checked into the hotel under a false name.
Police said he arrived at the hotel at 0905 BST on Sunday in a black cab and went into the bar area until 0950 BST before going to the hotel lift.
A police spokesman said: "We need to speak with anyone who knew Mr Yunataev.
"We also need the driver of the black cab that dropped him at the hotel to come forward."
2 apr 2004
Hotel murder police go to Israel
Police believe Yermia Yunataev was strangled or suffocated
Police investigating the murder of a man at a hotel in central London are to travel to Israel.
Yermia Yunataev, thought to have been in his 40s, was killed in a room on the seventh floor of the Marriott Hotel last Sunday.
His body was discovered after bloody clothes and documents were found dumped at a Eurotunnel terminal in Kent.
Post-mortem tests failed to establish how he died but police believe he was probably strangled or suffocated.
They are investigating the possibility that he was the victim of a "hit" carried out by an international drug or organised crime gang.
Detectives said Mr Yunataev was believed to have had an Israeli passport, although he is also thought to have checked into the hotel under a false name.
Police said he arrived at the hotel at 0905 BST on Sunday in a black cab and went into the bar area until 0950 BST before going to the hotel lift.
A police spokesman said: "We need to speak with anyone who knew Mr Yunataev."
Police are also keen to trace the driver of the black cab which dropped him at the hotel.
6 apr 2004
CCTV clue in hotel murder probe
Simon Turkov (right) was last seen on CCTV as he left the casino. Police are anxious to speak to the man on the left
Police have released CCTV images of a man who may have been the victim of a gangland "hit" by a drugs gang.
The body of Yermia Yunataev, an Israeli in his 40s, was found in a room at the Marriott Hotel, central London, at 2030 BST on 28 March.
CCTV footage shows Mr Yunataev walking with a white man in Gloucester Road, South Kensington, at about 0340 BST, after leaving the Grosvenor Casino.
It is thought Mr Yunataev may have links to the Israeli underworld.
Detectives believe Mr Yunataev may have been murdered by organised criminals, possibly as a result of a drugs deal which went wrong.
Gangland violence has been hitting the headlines in Mr Yunataev's native Israel.
In December two people were killed by an explosion, thought by police to have been aimed at a local figure from the criminal underworld.
Bloody clothes
Police believe Yermia Yunataev was strangled or suffocated
Police say Mr Yunataev was probably strangled and an inquest, opened and adjourned at Westminster Coroner's Court on 1 April, gave the provisional cause of death as asphyxiation.
The discovery came after bloody clothes and documents from the hotel were found dumped at a Eurotunnel terminal in Kent.
Detectives earlier flew to Israel as part of the investigation after being initially baffled as to Mr Yunataev's identity.
He was believed to have had an Israeli passport but is thought to have checked into the hotel under a false name.
The first CCTV image released shows Mr Yunataev after he left the casino, walking along Gloucester Road north towards Cromwell Road, at about 0345 BST on 28 March.
A second image shows him, at the same time and location, with another man.
The other man is described as white, aged about 35, with receding hair.
Police appeal
Mr Yunataev arrived at the Marriott Hotel just after 9am in a black Comcab.
He stayed in the hotel bar for about 45 minutes before taking the hotel lift.
His body was found in his room on the seventh floor later that day.
Police have urged the man in the CCTV images and the black cab driver to come forward.
8 apr 2004
Hotel murder man had 'two names'
Simon Turkov (right) was last seen on CCTV as he left the casino. Police are anxious to speak to the man on the left
A man who was murdered at a central London hotel is now believed to have been known by a second name.
Detectives said the man, who was killed in a room of the Marriott Hotel, near Oxford Street last month, was known as Simon Turkov and Yermia Yunataev.
His body was found after bloody clothes and documents from the hotel were found dumped at a Kent Eurotunnel terminal.
Mr Yunataev, 45, is believed to have had links with the Dorset area. An inquest was adjourned until 21 April.
Israeli passport
On Tuesday, CCTV footage was released of Mr Yunataev walking with a white man in Gloucester Road, South Kensington, at about 0340 BST on 28 March, after leaving the Grosvenor Casino.
Detectives have flown to Israel as part of the investigation after being initially baffled as to Mr Yunataev's identity.
He was believed to have had an Israeli passport, but is thought to have checked into the hotel under a false name.
Police say Mr Yunataev was probably strangled.
An inquest, opened and adjourned at Westminster Coroner's Court on 1 April, gave the provisional cause of death as asphyxiation.
7 juni 2004
Israel struggles to keep lid on crime
These guns and ammunition were seized by Israeli police in March 2004
In the last four years the Israeli police, struggling to stem the wave of Palestinian suicide bombings, have lost control of the country's organised criminals, who are making millions from gambling, prostitution and drugs.
But the deaths of nine innocent civilians in crossfire between gangsters over the last year has forced the fight against organised crime back on the political agenda.
Organised crime has become a booming industry in Israel in the last decade.
One former Israeli police chief, Asaf Heretz, claimed recently $2.5bn in "dirty money" had been invested in Israel in recent years.
Israeli gangsters have also spread their tentacles far and wide, with interests in the United States, Russia, South Africa and the Netherlands. A recent murder in London suggests they are also moving into the UK.
In March an Israeli criminal who had absconded from jail was found murdered in a London hotel room.
The body of Simon Turkov, who used the alias Yermia Yunataev, was discovered in a room at the Marriott Hotel in central London.
He was last seen leaving a casino in South Kensington with another man. Both were caught on CCTV camera but Scotland Yard have so far been unable to trace the other man.
Detectives believe Turkov's killer fled the country almost immediately on a Eurostar train.
Turkov had served two years in Israel's Solomon prison for attempting to smuggle 100,000 ecstasy tablets into the country from Egypt but he vanished while on weekend leave and came to Britain on false documents.
As police in London try to work out the motive for Turkov's murder, their colleagues in Israel are struggling to keep a lid on the growing vice in their country.
A gangland war in Israel last year culminated in December when three people were killed by a bomb in Tel Aviv.
Sixth assassination attempt
Simon Turkov was known by a number of aliases
The explosion was initially thought to be the work of Palestinians but it soon emerged the target was in fact a leading figure in the Israeli underworld, who we can only refer to as Mr Z for legal reasons.
It was the sixth unsuccessful attempt on his life.
One of Mr Z's friends is a former Israeli Energy Minister, Gonen Segev, who is awaiting trial accused of trying to smuggle 32,000 ecstasy tablets disguised as M&M chocolates into Israel from the Netherlands.
Mr Z's group, based in Tel Aviv, is understood to be involved in a war with a rival crime family, based in Jerusalem and led by Mr X and his brother.
The dispute is said to be over the lucrative trade in flying gamblers from Israel - where gambling is illegal - to casinos in Eastern Europe.
Mr X is reportedly supported by two brothers, while Mr Z has the implicit support of a crime family from Netanya.
Earlier this week police arrested four suspects for the December 2003 bombing, one of whom, Golan Avitan, was reportedly "one of the most senior figures in the Israeli underworld".
Mr Z's lawyer told BBC News Online her client had gone straight since leaving prison in 1982 and was nowadays a legitimate businessman.
She said: "He knows he was the target of the December bombing but he doesn't know who was behind it or why anyone would want to kill him. He is just trying to live his life as well as he can."
Illegal gambling is widespread in Israel. Until a recent clampdown gambling boats used to sail out into the Red Sea from Eilat.
In August 2002 Israeli gang boss Felix Abutbul was gunned down outside a casino he owned in Prague.
Israeli National Police spokesman Gil Kleiman said organised criminals were also heavily involved in loan sharking, extortion, money laundering, prostitution and drug smuggling.
'Attempts to infiltrate establishment'
Three people were killed in Tel Aviv in December in a gangland bombing
He said: "We do not have organised crime in Israel. We have criminals who are organised."
"The difference is that with organised crime there is an infiltration of the establishment. There have been attempts to gain control of politicians in Israel but so far they have been unsuccessful."
Mr Kleiman said: "There is no question that when (the intifada) began in September 2000 a lot of police manpower and resources was diverted to saving lives from terrorism.
"Detectives who would have been following up crime files were taken off to investigate the suicide bombings, which were happening almost daily."
But he said December's bomb attack in Tel Aviv was a "watershed" and the Interior Minister, Tzahi Hanegbi, and Police Commissioner, Shlomo Aharonishki, declared war on the organised criminals.
Mr Kleiman said new legislation has been introduced in the last two years to crack down on money laundering and the trafficking of people, especially women from Eastern Europe who are sent to work in Israeli brothels.
But as the heat builds up back home, there are indications Israeli gangsters are becoming more and more involved in trafficking drugs - especially ecstasy and amphetamines - abroad, especially to the United States.
Israeli organised crime syndicates have reportedly set their sights on Las Vegas, where there is a high demand for drugs such as ecstasy and cocaine.
Ecstasy smuggling
Eighteen people were injured in December's bomb attack
Last month the US Drug Enforcement Administration in Los Angeles charged several alleged members of the so-called Jerusalem Network with laundering money from the proceeds of smuggling millions of dollars worth of ecstasy into the US.
Gabriel Ben Harosh, 39, allegedly Mr X's right-hand man, was recently arrested in Toronto, Canada, and is now awaiting extradition to the US.
Mr X was named in a DEA affidavit, which BBC News Online has obtained, as having met Ben Harosh and others at a meeting in Florida which ended with a man being ordered to sign over his house as collateral for an unpaid drug debt.
The DEA affidavit also names 47-year-old Sasson Barashy, who is in custody in Israel in connection with the alleged embezzlement of $60m from an Israeli bank.
The affidavit claims Ben Harosh used another Israeli, Hai Waknine, to launder money through a car dealership.
The money was allegedly the proceeds of ecstasy trafficking, illegal gambling and embezzlement.
DEA agents tapped phone calls which were made in English, French, Hebrew and Arabic (many of those involved being Moroccan-born Sephardic Jews).
One of Ben Harosh's alleged accomplices, Micha Aslan, was murdered in Israel in June last year when he went to collect a debt.
Police in London are wondering whether Turkov's death was also related to his drug smuggling activities.
Simon Turkov (right) was last seen on CCTV as he left the casino
Detective Chief Inspector Julian Worker, who is leading the inquiry into the murder of Simon Turkov, told BBC News Online: "His antecedents and his connections to organised crime in Israel are at the forefront of my mind but I am keeping an open mind as to the motive for his murder."
He said: "It may have been a settling of scores, or it may have related to a new deal he was working on. We just don't know. But I am getting a much better picture about the events on the day he died."
If the answer to Turkov's killing lies in Israel then the chances of solving the case may be slim.
Israeli mafia incidents
May 2004: Former Energy Minister Gonen Segev charged with trafficking 30,000 ecstasy tablets
Apr 2004: DEA charges several Israelis with drug trafficking and money laundering
March 2004: Drug trafficker Simon Turkov murdered in London
Dec 2003: Three killed in Tel Aviv bombing but alleged gang boss Mr Z survives
Nov 2003: Belfast-born Hazel Crane shot dead in South Africa as she prepared to give evidence against alleged mafia boss Lior Saat
Jun 2003: Former Jerusalem underworld boss Micha Aslan shot dead in the resort of Eilat
Feb 2000: Body of Shai Avissar, head of Israeli mafia in South Africa, found in a shallow grave.
- 31 oct 2003
German MP sparks Jewish row
A German MP has caused a storm of protest by linking Jews to execution squads in the Russian Revolution.
CONSERVATIVE Martin Hohmann said a large numbers of Jews were active in execution squads and could therefore be described as a nation of perpetrators.
His speech triggered an angry response from the Jewish community and members of his CDU party, with some calling for him to stand down.
The Christian Democrats have faced Hohmannallegations in the past about members having links to the extreme right.
Mr Hohmann's comments were made during a speech nearly a month ago, but have only surfaced now.
'Perpetrators'
He compared the killings, which he said were orchestrated by Jews in Russia's violent 1917 revolution, with the murder of Europe's Jews during the Holocaust of the Second World War.
According to a transcript of his speech shown on the website of his local CDU branch in Neuhof, Mr Hohmann said: "Jews were active in great numbers in the leadership as well as in the Cheka (Soviet secret police) firing squads.
"Thus one could describe Jews with some justification as a Taetervolk (a race of perpetrators).
"That may sound horrible. But it would follow the same logic with which one describes the Germans as a race of perpetrators."
The speech has since been taken off the site.
The BBC's Ray Furlong in Berlin says Mr Hohmann has now gone further in defending his remarks on national television.
He said the MP demanded "justice" for Germans and that they should not define themselves as the nation who caused Auschwitz.
Taboo
Paul Spiegel, (right) with Chancellor Schröder
The head of Germany's Jewish community, Paul Spiegel, called Mr Hohmann's speech "a reach into the lowest drawer of disgusting anti-Semitism".
He said he had spoken to CDU leader Angela Merkel and assured reporters "she shared my views".
Our correspondent says any criticism of Jewish people is still a taboo in Germany, which makes this extremely embarrassing for Mr Hohmann's party.
The CDU's secretary-general, Laurenz Meyer, said he had urged Mr Hohmann to apologise as quickly as possible, but refused to comment on whether he would be forced to give up his seat.
Dieter Wiefelspuetz, a senior parliamentarian for Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats, took a harder line.
"There is no place for anti-Semites in the German parliament," he said.
15 sep 2012, 00:30 , Respect -
Portrait of a modern slave trader, Ludwig Fainberg
Here's the sketch of of Ludwig Fainberg's criminal career as drawn in Malarek's study of the international sex trade, The Natashas (Viking Canada: Toronto, 2003, pp. 51 - 57):
I WANTED TO FIND OUT just how difficult it is to purchase young Slavic women for the sex trade. It is, as I discovered, really quite easy. All that's needed is a connection and cold hard cash.
The meeting took place in an apartment in Ottawa, Canada's capital city, on a brisk, snowy night in early January 2003. I was a bit nervous. The man I was to meet was no ordinary low-level thug. Ludwig Fainberg is a notorious Israeli mobster with a hair-trigger temper and a penchant for extreme violence. According to FBI documents, he was the middleman for an international drugs and weapons smuggling conspiracy linking Colombian drug lords with the Russian Mafia in Miami. Fainberg's claim to fame was that in the mid-1990s, he ventured onto a high-security naval base in the far northern reaches of Russia.
His mission was to negotiate the purchase of a Russian Cold War-era diesel submarine -- complete with a retired naval captain and a twenty-five-man crew -- for the Columbian cocaine cartel. The price tag: a cool $5.5 million. The vessel was to be used to smuggle tons of white powder along the California coast. The deal fell through.
From 1990 until he was arrested and charged in Miami in February 1997 for smuggling and racketeering, Fainberg ran an infamous strip club called Porky's. The pink neon club on the fringe of Miami International Airport was a magnet for Russian hoods and sleazy East European émigrés with misbegotten fortunes and visions of untapped criminal proceeds.
Fainberg's rise through ROC [Russian organized crime] ranks is the stuff of Hollywood B-movies. He was born in Odessa, Ukraine, in 1958. When he was thirteen he and his parents immigrated to Israel. Later, he tried out for the Israeli Marines, wanting to become a Navy Seal. He flunked basic training. Then he wanted to become an officer in the Israeli Army but failed the exam. His over-inflated ego bruised, he decided to try his luck elsewhere. In 1980 he packed a suitcase and headed for Berlin, where he earned his stripes as a street-level goon in extortion and credit card fraud. Four years later he set out for the United States -- a land he fondly refers to as "the Wild West because it is so easy to steal there!"
He settled in the Brighton Beach area of Brooklyn, which had become the seat of the Organizatsiya, as the Russian mob is often called. There he linked up with the mob and specialized in arson -- torching businesses competing with those that were Russian owned. 1990 he moved to Miami to run Porky's. Nine years later he was convicted on racketeering charges and sentenced to thirty-seven months in prison. Since he had already spent thirty months in jail awaiting trial, Fainberg was deported to Israel. The next year he turned up in Canada with dreams of making it rich in the flesh trade. Not long after his arrival he married a Canadian and moved into a comfortable apartment along the Ottawa River with his new bride and his ten-year-old daughter from a previous marriage.
I entered the well-appointed two-bedroom flat and Fainberg stared hard into my face as we shook hands. He's a burly man with a thin goatee and short-cropped hair, and he was clearly sizing me up. I must have passed. He gripped my hand firmly and escorted me to the living room, which was outfitted with the latest gizmos in video and audio entertainment. I sank down into a soft, black kid-leather couch while he retreated to the kitchen to get a couple of imported beers.
"You can call me Tarzan," he began as he burst back into the room. With a proud boyish grin, he tossed me one of his business cards. The cover of the custom-made two-fold card sported the caricature of a mop-topped muscular man under the name of Porky's. The inside featured a cartoon of an ample nude woman bending over in knee-high stiletto-heeled boots. Underneath was his name -- "Tarzan Da Boss" -- and on the opposite side "Welcome to Planet Sex, Land of Fantasy." According to Fainberg, he was nicknamed Tarzan because he once sported a wild mane of hair and acted as though he was straight out of a jungle. These days, for travel and immigration purposes, he's known as Alon Bar. The former strip-club owner legally changed his name during his last pit stop in Israel.
The man is a consummate braggart. For the better part of the evening he crowed about his illicit escapades and nefarious underworld connections and boasted that his life would make a spectacular Hollywood movie. He even talked about penning his memoirs. "It would be number one on the New York Times bestseller list." But there's one aspect of his life he probably wouldn't want revealed in any book. Fainberg relishes putting women in their place. In one violent incident in Miami, undercover agents with the FBI and U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency watched from a safe distance as he chased a stripper out of Porky's and slammed her head repeatedly against the door of his Mercedes until the car was covered in blood. In another episode, he beat a dancer in the parking lot outside the club and then made her eat gravel. Clearly, he was no gentleman, and every woman in his club knew it. Incredibly, he attributes this mean streak to his upbringing: "In Russia, it's quite normal for men to slap women. It is cultural. It is part of life."
Fainberg prefers to see himself as an astute businessman, and if there's a business he firmly grasps, it's the flesh trade. "It can make you a millionaire in no time," he said, winking. His Canadian dream was to open a strip club in Gatineau, Quebec. The club, across the bridge from the nation's capital, would feature imported talent -- Russian and Ukrainian strippers and lap dancers. When I met with him he was shopping for a Canadian partner and trolling for an infusion of cash. I asked Tarzan what he would bring to the deal. He recited his know-how and his unique expertise in importing entertainment.
After an hour I shifted the conversation to the issue at hand: buying women. With an earnest, businesslike expression, Fainberg said flat-out that it was an easy feat -- he could bring women in from Russia, Ukraine, Romania or the Czech Republic. "No problem. The price is $10,000 with the girl landed. It is simple. It is easy to get access to the girls. It's a phone call. I know the brokers in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kyiv. I can call Moscow tomorrow and show you how easy it is. I can get ten to fifteen to twenty girls shipped to me in a week." Clearly, he had done this many times before.
"They know exactly what they're being hired to do?" I asked. "They're not being forced."
"They know why they are coming and what they are going to do. They will not be any trouble," he assured me.
Guardedly I mentioned that while surfing the internet, I had tripped on FBI and U.S. State Department documents that said he "likely trafficked in women." That got his attention. As he shifted to the edge of his seat, Fainberg's eyes flashed in indignation. "That is bullshit. I never trafficked in women. I don't need trafficked women. Agents in Russia are overwhelmed with women who want to do this voluntarily. If you look at their living conditions in Russia, there is no way of surviving. They live in poverty. At least this way, they can make a living. When people need to eat, what are you going to do?"
"Given what you've just said, they're not really prostitutes," I interjected.
Ludwig Fainberg by DEA
Fainberg paused for a moment, mulling over my words. Then with a laugh, he shot back: "My opinion is a prostitute is someone who is selling herself. From that point of view that is what they are. It is true they definitely do not want to do this. They are being pushed by their social level of their life. They're getting pushed by necessity. They're being pushed to survive. Then maybe they're not really prostitutes."
He even held himself out as a Good Samaritan: "The girls come here and they send some money home and the family lives. If they don't come to work here or in Germany or England, their family suffers. I give the girls a chance to earn money. For me, it is a business transaction, plain and simple, but I am also helping these women out."
"I've heard that a lot of these women have no idea they're going into prostitution when they accept these so-called job offers to work abroad," I countered. "In fact, I've read that a lot of them think they're going to be waitresses or hotel cleaning staff."
Fainberg held his fire.
I find that difficult to believe. I was present on many occasions when girls were being hired. Plus, at somepoint I had over twenty girls from Russia, Ukraine and Romania who came to work in the States. Maybe some of them don't know. But how stupid do you have to be that you are going to a different country to work as a waitress or dancer in a club? It is really stupidity. It's dumb. Women know what they are going for. Sometimes when they realize their mistakes or they're getting hurt, its easy to blame somebody else for being so dumb. I think they should only blame themselves for getting into that.
He grudgingly conceded that some of these women are duped. "I think 10 percent don't know what they're getting into. Ninety percent know exactly what they're going to do. What they may not know exactly is the conditions or how much money they will get."
"You don't have a problem with pushing women who are absolutely destitute into prostitution?"
"Look, that's what they can offer. Life is a business. It's a trade. You want to give something for nothing? You can help once or twice. But then ten, twenty or forty times? For that you want to get something in return."
Ludwig Fainberg cuffed
"What kind of money are we talking here?" I asked. "How much will it cost to bring a woman over, and what kind of profit can be made?"
"If it is run the proper way, the clean way, you can have a good clientele and make a lot of money. You can buy a woman for $10,000 and you can make your money back in a week if she is pretty and she is young. Then everything else is profit."
I asked about getting the women into Canada or the United States.
"It is so simple, so very simple," he bragged. "You know after 9/11 how difficult it was supposed to be to get into the United States? I will show you right now how easily we can get into the United States and then come back, and nobody will ever know we were in there." He went on to hint that certain Russian mobsters have connections with Native gangs whose reserves straddle the Canada-U.S. border.
A couple of days later, Canadian Immigration swooped in and arrested Fainberg in his comfortable Ottawa lair. He was labeled a threat to national security and public safety, and ordered deported to Israel.
But in November 2003 Ludwig Fainberg, the Jewish slave trader from the Ukraine, is still at large in Canada. . . 15 sep 2012, 00:30 , Respect -
Murder trial witness shot dead
A well-known South African socialite and friend of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was shot dead yesterday on her way to court to testify in the trial of an Israeli charged with her husband's murder.
The gangster-style execution of Hazel Crane occurred when she was driving to the Johannesburg high court.
She was shot when she stopped at traffic lights. Ms Crane, 56, had spoken of death threats and being in fear of her life.
She was going to testify against Lior Saat, 33, who has been charged with the 1999 murder of Ms Crane's estranged husband Shai Avissar, who was beaten to death. Mr Saat was also charged with intimidating Ms Crane by allegedly holding a gun to her head.
Mr Saat, said by South African media to have links to the "Israeli mafia", faces a raft of other murder, attempted murder, fraud and theft charges.
Avissar's murder was linked to a shady diamond deal.
Police battle to unravel Crane murder mystery
Killing ground: Investigators search for clues at the scene where Hazel Crane was shot dead
By Gill Gifford, Siyabonga Mkhwanazi and Sapa
What did Hazel Crane know, who wanted her dead and why? These are the questions central to the murder mystery surrounding Monday's assassination of the 56-year-old Johannesburg socialite.
When she was gunned down in Oaklands, Johannesburg, where was Amir Moila, co-accused - along with Lior Saadt in the 1999 killing of Crane's diamond-dealer husband and Israeli mafia godfather Shai Avissar? Police want to question Moila, who also uses the name David Milner.
We also know that Crane's evidence was vital to the Avissar murder case against Saadt, which is being heard at the Johannesburg High Court.
Captain Wayne Kukard, the investigating officer in the Saadt case, which includes an intimidation charge, confirmed that he was heavily reliant on Crane's evidence, but was not prepared to discuss the matter further.
It is known too that, despite Crane's prominent lifestyle, the socialite feared for her life and had been targeted twice before.
Crane recently told The Star that Moila had escaped to Mexico, and that she believed he was still there.
There is an outstanding warrant for Moila's arrest and he is also sought in Israel on several charges, including murder and bombings.
She also intimated to The Star, when she contacted the newspaper to discuss the recent placing of a photograph, that she believed her life was in danger.
When the assassin's bullet hit its mark on Monday it was the third time Crane had been targeted.
In the first incident, Saadt is alleged to have held a gun to Crane's head, leading to the existing intimidation charge against him.
The second attempt came in May this year, when gunmen opened fire on her and three neighbours as they discussed security measures in the street outside her home in Abbotsford - an upmarket Johannesburg suburb between Oaklands and Waverley.
Crane was not hit, but one of the others was wounded.
The gunmen sped away but apparently hit a dead-end which forced them to turn around and drive past the scene of the shooting. It was then that Crane apparently made eye contact with the men.
Media reports at the time quoted Crane as saying she felt she "had looked death in the eye".
Crane was gunned down as she left her Abbotsford home to attend Saadt's trial. At 9.20am she was shot four times by a lone gunman who leapt out from behind a concrete bin and opened fire.
She died in Milpark Hospital three hours later.
A woman companion in the car with her was wounded in a hand.
Police have since refused to speculate on possible suspects, declaring the information "sensitive".
Crane had been married to diamond dealer Avissar, who was murdered on October 8, 1999, and whose remains were found five months later in a shallow grave on a smallholding near Pretoria.
The couple were estranged at the time of his death.
An arrest warrant was issued for Saadt, who was arrested at the South Africa-Mozambique border 15 months later.
Assassination attempts have been a feature of the Saadt trial.
Saadt, who has his own cell in the overcrowded Diepkloof Prison, claimed at his first court appearance that there was a contract out on his life.
In June 2001 Saadt was shot in the buttocks by gunmen on a motorcycle, who ambushed a police van taking him to court. Another prisoner was killed and two more injured in the attack.
At the time of Avissar's murder, Crane had been offered protection by the state but had apparently refused, saying she would make her own arrangements.
In addition to Avissar's murder and the alleged intimidation of Crane, Saadt is facing another 11 charges, including two of attempted murder, kidnapping and illegal possession of teargas and a firearm.
Crane had been due to testify that Saadt had intimidated her, and give evidence in connection with Avissar's murder.
Saadt had allegedly pointed a firearm at her after Avissar's disappearance in 1999 and told her "to stop interfering in the search for Shai Avissar", as well as that "he was going to shoot her head off", the indictment states.
The trial, which finally started last month, has largely centred on Saadt's allegation that he was arrested illegally in Mozambique. He claims that he was kidnapped by police in Maputo and brought to South Africa.
A ruling is expected on Tuesday or Wednesday about whether Saadt can be tried in this country.
Crane is known to have regularly attended the hearings, often accompanied by friends including Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.
Clad in a navy shirt and blue jeans, Saadt had on Monday been brought to court late because there had apparently been a problem regarding his transport.
An air of uneasiness and tension pervaded the courtroom before Saadt was eventually brought in amid unprecedented security, in leg-irons and handcuffs.
Before his arrival, one observer muttered that "something interesting" was going to happen.
Saadt's handcuffs were taken off shortly before the proceedings began. But when he was taken to the basement cells during adjournments, three armed policemen escorted him, and not only a court orderly as is usually the case.
As the news of Crane's murder filtered through court, the state's team - advocates Tom Dicker and Renier van Vuuren - were at a loss for words.
Even the defence team of advocates Johan Pretorius and Lawley Shane expressed shock and disbelief upon hearing the news.
Alleged Israeli mafia member Ben Zion, arrested on suspicion of having manufactured fake R5 coins, escaped from custody on Sunday. He had been booked out for investigation purposes by members of the Special Commercial Crime Unit in Pretoria and disappeared in Cape Town.
Police following strong leads on Crane's assassination
A MANHUNT is under way for the man who shot Hazel Crane, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela's close friend, with police saying they are following strong leads. Crane, a Johannesburg socialite, was shot dead yesterday while on her way to the Johannesburg High Court.
A jurisdiction verdict could be handed down today or tomorrow on whether Lior Saat, an Israeli diamond dealer and alleged Mafia member, should be tried in South Africa. Saat is accused of murdering Crane's estranged husband, Shai Avissar, in 1999. Saat is challenging the jurisdiction of South African courts to try him.
Crane's assailant is believed to have hidden behind a dustbin in anticipation of her arrival at the scene. Once she was spotted, he opened fire. Crane later died in hospital. The assailant was apparently seen fleeing the scene by various witnesses.
12 nov 2003
Israeli Mafia confirmed active in South Africa
THE South African Police Service has confirmed that the Israeli mafia exists in South Africa and is very active in the northern surbubs of Johannesburg. This follows rumours that Johannesburg socialite Hazel Crane's murder yesterday [see below], and that of her husband diamond dealer, Shai Avissar, in 1999 are the works of the mafia.
"It most definitely exists, there is no doubt about that," Chris Wilken, the Johannesburg Police Senior Superintendent, said today. "I mean it's coming way back, if you take the murder of Shai Avissar." Wilken said the mafia was involved in all sorts of shady activities including diamond smuggling, drug peddling, money laundering etc. "They are quite busy in the northern surbubs of Johannesburg." "I think there were three or four murders in particular in that area," Wilken said.
Crane, a close friend of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, was gunned down in the northern Johannesburg suburb of Athol-Oaklands yesterday. She was on her way to the Johannesburg High Court to testify in the jurisdiction hearing of Israeli diamond dealer and alleged mafia member Lior Saat (33), accused of murdering her husband.
Avissar, an alleged mafia godfather himself, was last seen alive at a fast-food outlet in Norwood. In January 2000 his battered body was found by police in a shallow grave on a smallholding in Erasmia, Pretoria.
Saat is alleged to have bludgeoned Avissar to death in October 1999, in Sunninghill, east of Johannesburg. He appeared in court yesterday despite the fact that a key witnesses in his trial had been eliminated. An Israeli national, Saat is challenging the jurisdiction of the South African courts to try him. He claims he was abducted from the Mozambican border and brought to South Africa illegally. [Website comment: Like Eichmann, abducted to Israel in 1960].
Wilken said two more suspects in the Avissar murder, also believed to be with the Israeli mafia, left the country after the incident. He said the latest developments require that they look at the "whole thing from the beginning again".
David Irving comments:
THE "Israeli Mafia" is getting a lot of press in South Africa in the wake of the Nov 10, 2003 assassination of a socialite who was on her way to court to testify against the Jewish thug who murdered her diamond-dealing husband.
Johannesburg's top cop confirms that their mobsters are "involved in all sorts of shady activities including diamond smuggling, drug peddling, money laundering etc."
This comes as a very great shock and surprise to us all, as I am sure it did to this policeman. We had believed until now that gem dealers were involved only in harmless stuff like slave-trafficking in naive young girls from the former Soviet bloc, drug-dealing, money laundering for terror groups, and helping to procure surface-to-air missiles for new York's al-Qaeda stringers, and the like.
The story is getting oodles of coverage in the South African press, and we'll keep a sleepy half-eye fixed upon it for you.
16 nov 2003
Israeli gangsters blamed for murder of Winnie's friend
Wearing her trademark diamonds, blonde socialite Hazel Crane was last week gunned down in broad daylight in a wealthy Johannesburg suburb, a gangland-style murder with all the hallmarks of the Israeli mafia that has horrified South Africans.
The flamboyant widow, close friend and confidante of disgraced icon Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, was driving her Mercedes, her initials on the licence plate, to attend the trial of a man accused of murdering her diamond dealer husband.
When she stopped at a traffic light near her Abbotsford home, a man stepped out from behind a dustbin and pumped six shots into the car, fatally injuring Crane, 56, and wounding her passenger. The hitman jumped into a waiting car and roared off.
News of the assasination spread so quickly that journalists were calling police headquarters before authorities knew Crane was the victim. Madikizela-Mandela rushed to the Milpark Hospital and was there when Crane was declared dead. Nelson Mandela's former wife then went to Crane's home to comfort family members.
Crane was going to court to testify against Lior Saadt, who is accused of killing her estranged husband Shai Avissar in October 1999. Crane had told police Saadt pulled a gun on her and threatened 'to blow her head off'. Of Saadt, she told reporters: 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.'
She is the third witness against Saadt to have been murdered. Julio Bascelli was shot in the head in a deserted garage soon after Avissar's murder and Carol Binne was shot dead at the Gecko Lounge, a Johannesburg nightclub, in April 2001. One of the state's only remaining witnesses is the 48-year-old unnamed woman who was the passenger in Crane's car. She was shot in the hand and remains in hospital under tight police security.
Police said they are hunting for Amir Moila, another alleged member of the Israeli gang, who is also wanted for Avissar's murder. Avissar was the head of the South African wing of the Israeli Ramat Amidar gang and his lieutenant was Saadt, according to Police Superintendent Chris Wilken. Saadt allegedly killed Avissar to seize control of the South African operations, which include lucrative diamond smuggling, drug smuggling, money laundering, extortion, protection rackets, fraud and murder.
Crane had gone into hiding after her husband was killed. She had already survived two other attempts to kill her and used bodyguards.
Crane had started a business as a commodity broker before becoming involved with Avissar. In 1993 she was convicted of illegal dealing in uncut diamonds. In 1995 she was involved in a dispute over missing gems and an illegal foreign exchange deal.
Despite their ineffectiveness in curbing the blood-letting that eventually claimed Crane, South Africa's police say they will crack the diamond trading gang. 'We are not going to be intimidated by the Israeli mafia,' said Wilken after Crane's murder. 'We are more than capable of dealing with them.'
High society rocked by the shady past of one of its own
Hazel Crane's biography recounts her life as a smuggler, strip joint owner and pornographer.
She burst into the public eye with an offer to buy Winnie Madikizela-Mandela a house and from then Hazel Crane became a fixture at A-list gatherings in South Africa.
Little was known about the diminutive 50-something blonde former nurse from Zimbabwe who gave generously to charity and threw herself into the spirit of every top-drawer party in her adopted country.
Punctuating her regular appearances in the society pages from the late 1990s, Ms Crane made headlines through her friendship with Nelson Mandela's former wife and when her own former husband was murdered.
The shady Israeli diamond dealer Shai Avissar was found in a shallow grave in 2000, three months after he went missing. He had been beaten to death with a baseball bat.
Almost three years later Ms Crane, 52, died in hospital after an assassin shot her four times.
The socialite had been on her way to the Johannesburg High Court to continue her campaign of glaring at Lior Saadt, the man accused of murdering her husband and whom Ms Crane had been instrumental in having arrested.
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The assassination of the multimillionaire shocked her friends, who, despite being aware of her tenuous connection to Israeli gangsters, had accepted her into their world.
Her one conviction for dealing in eight unpolished diamonds went unnoticed. It had happened years before her entry into high society and in any case her social friends just wrote off any gossip as speculation.
"People met her as a socialite and accepted her as a socialite," said Monique Strydom who raises money to fight child abuse.
Ms Crane's friends on the charity circuit knew her as a woman who was prepared to share her wealth. "We just always found that Hazel was very giving and very supportive," said her friend and events company owner Edith Venter.
Not so much as a whisper about Ms Crane's other life made it to the lips of the rich and famous. It was assumed that Avissar was the criminal. That is until Ms Crane's book was published earlier this month.
In Hazel Crane, Queen of Diamonds: Testimony from Beyond the Grave she recounts a string of criminal exploits.
She had promised a no-holds-barred book at the conclusion of the trial of Mr Saadt's - described as an Israeli gangster - and they had expected revelations about her husband's murder, rather than her life of crime.
Charges were withdrawn against Mr Saadt in March after Ms Crane and two other witnesses were murdered and the investigating officer died of a heart attack at 36.
The book was written by a British journalist whose identity is being kept secret for fear of reprisals. It recounts how the Northern Irish immigrant to the then Rhodesia turned to crime when her first husband died at the age of 25. With a small daughter and a baby on the way, she made her fortune smuggling emeralds and diamonds, making blackmarket currency deals, owning a striptease joint and selling hard-core pornography.
It describes how she would tuck emeralds into her beehive hairdo or pack them into her son's nappies for smuggling.
2 mrt 2004
Dead man walking?
By Jonathan Ancer, Baldwin Ndaba and Gill Gifford
Alleged Israeli mafia lieutenant Lior Saadt walked out of court a free man - but a marked one as well.
He went straight into hiding on Monday after the state dropped the bombshell that it was unable to pursue the murder charge against him. He had been accused of murdering Shai Avissar, a diamond dealer and also an alleged Israeli mafiosi.
Earlier in the day, undercover officers swarmed in and out of the Johannesburg High Court, keeping their eyes peeled for hitmen, while Saadt's own security men searched building rooftops for snipers.
Saadt was flanked by dozens of bodyguards, who whisked him into a bulletproof car and drove him to a safe house.
The state's case against him collapsed because socialite Hazel Crane, a witness, was murdered in November and investigating officer Wayne Kukard died of a heart attack on January 6. Crane was the third witness to have been murdered.
Police confirmed on Monday that the other witnesses had withdrawn their statements and were too frightened to come forward against Saadt.
But Saadt himself is running scared. His lawyer, Lawley Shein, said his client feared for his life after being set free.
Diamond dealer Avissar, kingpin of the Israeli mafia in South Africa and Crane's estranged husband, was bludgeoned to death with a bat on October 8, 1999.
?He (Saadt) is very happy with the outcome but still fears for his life,? Shein said.
Saadt, 33, survived an attempted hit two years ago after being shot in the buttocks while being transported to court.
State prosecutor Tom Dicker told the court that the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had decided to withdraw the charges against Saadt ?due to the murder of Hazel Crane? and ?the untimely death? of Kukard.
After Judge David Marais endorsed the decision, Saadt asked his bodyguards to accompany him to the holding cells while the paperwork was completed.
Outside court, a jubilant Shein maintained his client's innocence.
?The DPP realised that there would be no grounds for a reasonable and successful prosecution because there was no evidence against my client,? he said.
?Do you think the DPP would withdraw charges so easily? They withdrew the charges because there was no chance of success.?
Shein added that Crane was not an eyewitness to Avissar's murder and could only have given circumstantial evidence. He denied earlier reports that Saadt enjoyed special treatment while in custody.
?My client was treated like any other prisoner, except for the fact that he was in a single cell, because he believed that there was a contract on his life,? Shein said.
It is understood that Saadt would try and leave SA as soon as possible - even by Monday night.
Shein confirmed that his client had no intention to stay in the country.
?Lior's an Israeli. He'll go back to Israel and try to rebuild his life. There's nothing keeping him in South Africa. Lior spent three years living in hell on earth as an awaiting-trial prisoner, where the conditions are appalling,? Shein said.
Daniel Pinhasi, the acting Israeli ambassador, confirmed that the embassy had been approached by the South African and Israeli police with a request for Saadt to be issued with a travel document.
?We have issued Saadt with a restricted travel document, called a laissez passer. The document allows him to travel to Israel - and only to Israel. No other country will accept him,? Pinhasi said.
As Saadt walks free, the investigations into the deaths of murdered witnesses set to testify against him have gone cold. No one has been arrested for the murder of Crane, who was shot four times after leaving her home in upmarket Abbotsford, Johannesburg.
She was on her way to attend a court appearance of Saadt. Crane died a few hours after the shooting.
Investigating officer Inspector Johnnie Kriger, of the Johannesburg Serious and Violent Crimes Unit, maintains that he is following up on leads but could not name a suspect.
Avissar's remains were found five months after he had been bludgeoned to death. His remains had been buried in a shallow grave on a Pretoria smallholding.
Soon after Avissar's body was found, a warrant of arrest was issued for Saadt, who was captured at the Maputo border in 2001 - 15 months later.
Kukard worked closely with Kriger on the cases. Before his death, Kukard was convinced he would get a conviction, despite his dwindling list of witnesses.
In April 2000, Julio Bascelli, who had information regarding Avissar's murder, was killed.
He was sitting in his vehicle at a petrol station at the Modderfontein off-ramp, near the N3 highway, when he was shot in the head. The case remains unsolved.
Another witness, Carlo Binne, was killed in a drive-by shooting in April 2001.
?He was leaving the Gecko Lounge nightclub and was shot four times before he reached his car,? said Kriger, explaining another unsolved murder.
Both Bascelli and Binne had made damning statements against Saadt.
Undaunted by the loss of three star witnesses, Kukard pressed on. At Crane's funeral, he commented that her death weighed heavily on him, as he had accepted her decision when she turned down the security he had offered her.
Less than two months later, Kukard died of a heart attack after collapsing in his home.
It was Kukard's death that ultimately led to the withdrawal of the case against Saadt, a development that Kriger wryly described as ?a pathetic joke?.
?The key witnesses are dead, but we had others. There were more people who could testify but they all withdrew in fear. They all claimed they feared for their lives,? he said.