Year-old murder case cracked, police say

Police investigators announced Wednesday that they’d solved the murder of Yitzhak Elgabi, which occurred over a year ago in the small town of Avihayil in central Israel. According to police, Elgabi was stabbed to death at his home by four burglars from the West Bank city of Tulkarem.

Elgabi was murdered in October 2012 after he left a family dinner at his daughter’s house in order to fetch a loaf of bread from his apartment next door. His daughter grew worried after he failed to return and went over to his house, only to find him laying lifeless on the floor, his body covered in blood.

Investigators from a special Sharon District Police task force said that the four suspects allegedly broke into Elgabi’s home and had not originally intended to harm him. Elgabi’s unexpected return to the scene startled the housebreakers, who proceeded to stab him in the chest with a sharp object. Elgabi, investigators assessed, collapsed on the spot and rapidly bled to death.

According to police, the burglars then slipped out of the building unnoticed and went to eat shawarma at a nearby steakhouse in Baqa al-Gharbiya.

Police said the four had confessed to carrying out the attack. A state prosecutor is expected to file an indictment with a regional court within the next few days.

In an interview with Army Radio, Elgabi’s daughter Liran expressed hope that justice would be served and that the four suspects would be sentenced according to the severity of their crime.

“It’s no comfort and it will not bring him back to life, but this is closure. she said. “We expect the court to prosecute them to the full extent of the law.”