Suspect charged with murder for allegedly luring man who was shot and killed in front of wife, 4-year-old

The Central District Attorney’s Office charges Abd el-Rahman Msarwa, 30, with murder after he allegedly lured Ziyad Bashara to the scene where two masked men pulled up on a motorcycle and shot the 57-year-old dead in front of his wife and her 4-year-old daughter on August 5, near a high school in the central Arab town of Taibeh.

According to the indictment filed at the Lod District Court, Msarwa used a phone he did not regularly use, equipped with a new SIM card, to contract Bashara to install a canopy just outside the Taibeh Sciences High School.

While driving around the school, Msarwa allegedly lied that he was on his way to the site with his son to meet Bashara, who had his wife and the young girl in tow.

In their last exchange, Msarwa allegedly said he was stopping to get coffee and would arrive within three minutes.

As Bashara waited in his car, the masked men — who wore long black clothes, gloves and helmets — pulled up near the passenger’s window, and one of them shot Bashara seven times at close range, killing him, the indictment says.

The two masked men are still at large, prosecutors say.