Murder.com (21 page)

T
he outrage caused by the murder of a young Israeli at the hands of a bloodthirsty Palestinian terrorist group was all the more shocking because the internet had facilitated the killing. For obvious reasons in these troubled times, the manufactured ‘romantic’ chatroom contact that evolved between a Palestinian and an Israeli is not a commonplace occurrence. So, when it became clear that a young Jewish lad had been cruelly tricked by a duplicitous Palestinian girl and viciously slain by her accomplices, the immediate reaction was one of overwhelming anger.

Incensed exchanges flew across the internet – the very vehicle that had spawned this tragic event – with sites and weblogs springing up to passionately rail against perceived injustices, rekindling dormant hatreds.

One bitter posting suggested that this salutary case should be required reading within the Israeli school system, and went on to proclaim, ‘For while Ofir had “Sleeping With the Enemy” (another American movie!) on his mind, Mona was out for blood… HIS blood!’

Anger and resentment abounded, old wounds were reopened and exacerbated – and the internet was a major tool in it all.

Mona Jaud Awana lived in the small West Bank Arab village of Bir Naballah, just a few miles north of Jerusalem and a short distance south of Ramallah.

Down the ages, Ramallah has seen much bloodshed, and 23-year-old Awana had a plan that promised more of the same: the abduction of a young Jewish man whom she would later cast into the jaws of death.

Awana’s first step was to find a sure way of achieving her sinister purpose, and she turned immediately to the internet for assistance.

In an internet cafe in Ramallah, Awana cast her lure. She was not just someone planning a terrible crime; in fact, she was a spoke in a more ruthless wheel, for she was a diehard member of the student wing of Al Fatah’s Tanzim terror organisation.

Awana’s plan was endorsed by those around her. She would be charged with drawing a young Jew into her spider’s web, and they would then dispatch the trusting victim.

Awana had the perfect lure – sex.

Her first contact was established with a young man from Jerusalem named Meir Karni. Awana delved into an internet chatroom to find him, and quickly set about promising him sex if he would care to visit her in Ramallah.

As a young, red-blooded male, Meir was intrigued, indeed tantalised, by some of the lewd suggestions Awana put his way, but fortunately for him his savvy prevailed and he declined the offer. There was something about the urgency of Awana’s approach that had made him wary. She seemed just a little
too
keen to get him to Ramallah.

Undeterred, Awana adopted the online pseudonym of ‘Sally’ and, after a short period of trawling, hooked herself another young Jew, Ofir Rahum. Sally’s fabricated background led the 16-year-old to believe that her father was of Moroccan descent, her mother Israeli, and that she herself was an immigrant from Morocco, not yet proficient in Hebrew. She let Ofir know that she had not long been resident in Ramallah. To Awana’s delight, the teenager seemed interested. She rushed back to her accomplices to report that her target wanted more. For his part, Ofir entertained his friends with his tale of meeting an older, alluring woman on the internet.

Along with the many messages he sent via the net, Ofir had emailed Sally a photograph of himself. He looked and sounded exactly what he was: a handsome and intelligent youth. Sadly, even the brightest of individuals, if lonely or desperate enough, sometimes throw caution to the wind. Even so, how could Ofir have fallen for someone he had never even met and really knew nothing about?

The answer is, it happens all the time. Just ask anybody you know who engages in – and may even be hopelessly addicted to – internet flirting, whether through emails, postings on discussion boards or in private chatrooms. The young and adventurous especially, believing – because they
want
to – that their lucky number has come up, will take the most outrageous of risks.

Meanwhile, the Tanzim posse were thrilled, and instructed their friend Mona to keep a firm grip on this most recent contact. She must tempt him and tease him as much as possible, as a prelude to enticing him to meet her.

After a number of online chatroom sessions, Awana had decided that Ofir was a suitable candidate. She duly passed this information to a pal, one of those pulling her jaded strings: a brutal terrorist named Hassan al-Qadi.

Blissfully unaware of the danger he was in, Ofir let his mind be filled with images of the seductive ‘Sally’. Over a couple of weeks, Awana worked hard to lure him to what she called a ‘one-on-one’ encounter at a Jerusalem apartment belonging to one of her girlfriends. However, Ofir told her this would not be convenient for him. He explained he couldn’t travel to Jerusalem, enjoy the proposed steamy interlude, then get back to Ashkelon without his parents becoming suspicious about the length of time he would be away from home.

Realising that her target would not be swayed, Awana backed off for the moment.

Later that month, Awana finally succeeded in snaring her prey. On Wednesday, 17 January 2001, the two arranged to meet at the central bus station in Jerusalem. Ofir had been asked to bring a large sum of money with him, and was very excited about the sexual encounter that was surely to follow.

When the two met, he eagerly agreed to accompany Awana, by taxi, to the A-Ram junction, north of Jerusalem. It was here that Hassan al-Qadi had said he would leave a car for Awana.

After finding the vehicle, Awana drove off with Ofir towards Ramallah. The teenager would have been acutely aware, along with the rest of this troubled land, that two Israeli reservists had
been seized and slaughtered in the town just a few months back, in October 2000. The pair had been savagely beaten, tossed from a window and torn apart by a baying crowd thirsty for their blood.

But did Ofir Rahum sense that a terrible trap might lie in wait for him too?

Awana pulled over to the side of the road when they got to El Bireh, not far from the village of Psigot.

The ambush happened just as they had planned it. Awana leaped out of the car and al-Qadi, accompanied by two masked Palestinian hit-team members, suddenly appeared at the passenger door. Yanking it open and shoving a Kalashnikov AK-47 into the terrified lad’s face, al-Qadi screamed at him to get out. Panicked, Ofir remained seated, shaking his head wildly.

At this unexpected defiance – the group had obviously thought that fear would render their captive more compliant, so that they could take him away, presumably to extend his suffering – al-Qadi reacted with extreme violence. Enraged, he fired several shots into Ofir’s legs, then attempted to drag him from the car. Still resisting his attacker, the teenager received a hail of bullets in his face and upper torso.

Ofir Rahum, expecting an enjoyable experience with an attractive woman, instead ended up shot dead by a band of terrorists. His once trusted and familiar internet had betrayed him with lethal consequences.

Awana climbed back into the car and followed the others as they sped away, leaving one of their number to dispose of Ofir. The youth’s corpse, riddled with 15 bullets, was driven a short distance before being unceremoniously dumped at the dusty roadside.

Shortly after the slaying, Awana met a girlfriend for lunch, visited an aunt in the hospital, then attended a defensive driving course in Jerusalem. It was business as usual for the cold-blooded internet siren.

The anxious parents of Ofir Rahum, concerned when he failed to return home, questioned his friends, soon discovering that he had not attended school that day. His body was discovered that same evening, but was unrecognisable and presumed to be that of a Palestinian collaborator dispatched by a bunch of vigilantes.

Palestinian security officials laid claim to the victim’s remains. However, because of the extreme mutilation of the victim’s features by gunshot wounds, investigators had difficulty identifying the body. Later, the vigilante theory now dropped, they suggested it was that of a Palestinian, apparently shot dead by Israeli security officials. Israel vehemently denied this, and noted that shots had been fired at an army convoy in the area of El Bireh.

The bickering continued, with the Israelis arguing that it was the Palestinians who were responsible for the murder.

The Palestinians continued to advertise the fact that they had discovered a body, but declined to offer a description or any other information. When the Civil Administration in Judaea and Samaria and the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) received a report on the missing boy, Israel once again pressed for details. The Palestinians stuck to their claim that they held a body of one of their own. Not to be discouraged by this, senior Israeli officials supplied them with a full description of Ofir Rahum and other important details, demanding immediate co-operation.

Under mounting pressure, Palestinian security officials soon confirmed Israel’s suspicions and Ofir’s body was handed over to the District Coordinating Office in Ramallah.

‘We take this kind of murder very seriously, since it is harmful to the PA,’ stated a Palestinian security officer. He also commented that both nationalistic and criminal motives were being investigated.

Despite the continuing Israeli–Palestinian conflict, WAFA, a news agency controlled by the Palestinian Authority, denounced the murder of Ofir Rahum, stating that it fully opposed attacks against civilians. Israel’s Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, also condemned the killing, saying, ‘The cruel murder of a young man is extremely grave and we will act to ensure those responsible are brought to justice.’

Ofir Rahum was the fourth Israeli to be murdered in the Ramallah area since the outbreak of the latest intifada.

The invulnerability Mona Jaud Awana assumed she enjoyed by using the internet under a false name did not last long. She was arrested a few weeks after the killing by Israeli agents and an undercover army unit at the home of her parents in the village of Bir Naballah. An examination of Ofir Rahum’s computer had led the authorities straight there.

It emerged that Awana was a freelance journalist and resident of East Jerusalem who carried an Israeli identity card. Palestinian sources in Ramallah quickly let it be known that it was highly unlikely that this former psychology student at Bir Zeit University was involved in the murder. And at first Awana refused to help the police. ‘Despite the fact that she has been detained for many hours, she is not co-operating at this stage and we still don’t have all the details,’ said Israel Police Inspector General Shlomo Aharonishky. ‘She is denying her involvement. We still don’t have the motive or what lay behind the deed, but
the investigation is still going on.’ But, he added, ‘from evidence collected at her home and elsewhere, we believe she is connected to it’.

The Al Fatah activists to whom Awana was closely affiliated also distanced themselves from the murder. And her brother said she did not have a computer at home and was not familiar with the workings of the internet. A spurious allegation indeed, as Awana is known to have made regular visits to internet cafes and ably navigated her way around the web.

Mona Jaud Awana was charged with Ofir Rahum’s murder, which she subsequently admitted playing her part in, and brought before the Beit El Military Court, near Ramallah. Without one shred of remorse, she proudly announced that the murder had been committed on behalf of ‘the Palestinian people’.

And, while Prime Minister Barak was busy praising the IDF and General Security Service for the efficient operation that had led to Awana’s arrest, he took the opportunity to warn that Israel would apprehend and severely punish those others who had a hand in Ofir’s slaughter.

As Awana’s trial loomed, many furious Israelis expressed their fears that a gaggle of eager left-wing Jewish lawyers would clamour to represent the notorious defendant.

In November 2002, a Zionist military court passed a life sentence on Mona Jaud Awana for participation in the kidnap and murder of a Zionist settler, Ofir Rahum. The court found Mona guilty of ‘intentionally causing the death of a man’, which, in the Zionist penal code, is a crime tantamount to first-degree murder.

The body of Ofir Rahum was later returned to his parents so that they could bury their son. Candle-lit vigils were also held in
remembrance of this young man, conned out of his life by a group of predators. Emotions ran high, especially after it was made public that the murdered teenager was initially thought to have been a Palestinian collaborator.

Hundreds attended Ofir’s funeral in Ashkelon. His school principal described him as ‘an outstanding student and a wonderful person, who had been blessed with the support of a loving family’.

In the wake of the Rahum’s slaying, Chief-Superintendent Meir Zohar, head of the Israel Police Computer Crime Department, announced that internet-related crime was on the increase. He stated that the tragedy was the first instance that he knew of in which the internet had been used specifically to entrap a targeted terrorist victim.

‘The criminal underworld realised the potential of the internet a long time ago,’ Zohar said. ‘It allows criminals to masquerade as different people and provides them with a large degree of anonymity.’

As well as all the familiar crimes that the internet provides a haven for, such as hacking, gambling, drug-smuggling, rape and paedophilia, young people were often the perpetrators of cyber crimes, he explained, and those juveniles needed to be made fully aware of the consequences of their actions. ‘I think what is needed is a policy of education and information to make internet users, especially minors, more aware of the risk they are taking,’ he said.

On the anniversary of the Computer Crimes Department, which often keeps tabs on chatroom conversations, Zohar claimed that this electronic eavesdropping had been particularly effective on two previous occasions. The first had been when
police had monitored discussions between several people threatening to commit suicide. Investigators established contact and provided them with the necessary treatment.