Father of Tel Aviv shooting suspect questioned by police
Along with Mohammad Milhem, five family members also detained; defense attorney says police are ‘helpless’
Stuart Winer is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.
The father of the fugitive suspected terrorist who shot up a Tel Aviv bar on Friday was arrested and questioned on Tuesday morning along with five more family members.
Police and the Shin Bet security service detained Mohammed Milhem, the father of 29-year-old Nashat Milhem of the northern Israeli Arab town of Arara, on accessory to murder suspicions.
It was the second time he has been arrested since the attack last Friday.
Two other sons have already been hauled in by police in connection with the shooting last week, but details of their arrests remain under a gag order.
Attorney Nechami Feinblatt, who is representing the Milhem family, said police were arresting family members because they were at a loss as to how to find the escaped gunman.
“This is police helplessness,” he said, according to Channel 2. “In the end they will arrest the whole family. This arrest was expected. the Shin Bet [security service] is under pressure. No one in the family has any connection to what the son did.”
Attorney Salim Milhem, who intends to offer to represent Nashat if he is located, told the Hebrew-language NRG website that the family was infuriated by the arrests.
“It is simply unconscionable,” he said. “The Shin Bet and the police are using strange methods that aren’t clear. Why was it necessary to arrest the father, who has been cooperating [with authorities] from the first moment? Besides him, they arrested two brothers and other family members. Soon they will also arrest the mother? This is madness by the Shin Bet and the police, who can’t manage to find Nashat and so are acting under pressure.”
Attorney Milhem suggested that the suspected terrorist, who has evaded police for several days, may have killed himself.
“I know him personally, I spent a lot of time with him. The possibility that he committed suicide is definitely on the agenda. It is hard for me to believe that he is managing to stay hidden from the police and the Israeli security services for so long.”
On Monday, father Mohammed made a televised plea to his son to turn himself in, as Tel Aviv residents hunkered down amid ongoing searches for the suspected terrorist.
“Contact me,” he said, appealing directly to his son. “I will help you. Let’s end this saga. These are difficult days for the family.”
“I condemn the incident and empathize with the suffering of the bereaved families, and wish a recovery to the injured,” he added, and denied that his other family members were in any way involved in the attack.
“I respect the actions of the Shin Bet and police, but not to the extent that they harm family [members] who have nothing to do with the incident.”
Nashat Milhem, 29, of Arara, a village in northern Israel, was believed to have fled the scene of the deadly attack, possibly to the West Bank. The shooting took place outside the Simta bar on Tel Aviv’s busy Dizengoff Street.
Shift manager Alon Bakal, 26, and patron Shimon Ruimi, 30, were killed in a hail of bullets as the gunman opened fire with a submachine gun he stole from his father. Seven people were wounded. Police suspect Milhem went on to kill cab driver Amin Shaaban, a father of 11 from Lod, who was found shot to death in north Tel Aviv an hour after the attack.
Milhem had previously spent five years in Israeli prison for stabbing an IDF soldier and trying to steal his weapon in 2007.
The police manhunt has mostly focused on Tel Aviv, specifically the north of the city, where Milhem once worked and lived. Authorities have warned he is armed, dangerous and capable of striking again.
