Man who murdered parents given two life terms

A man was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences for murdering his parents after the Jerusalem District Court found him guilty of the crimes on Monday.

Daniel Maoz denied killing his parents, Noah and Nurit Maoz, and instead claimed it was his identical twin brother, Nir, who stabbed the two to death. Maoz was also sentenced to an addtional five years for destroying evidence.

In what presiding Judge Tzvi Segal described as “a set of facts that wouldn’t disgrace a horror film at the cinema,” Maoz stabbed his parent multiple times and then tried to cover his tracks.

During the course of the sentencing Maoz rose from his seat and directed accusations at his brother Nir, who he maintains was the murderer.

“How can you sleep at night, Nir, do you sleep well?” Maoz shouted at his sibling after previously saying he was lucky to not have been subjected to a polygraph test.

The case has gripped the Israeli media since the discovery of the bodies of the Maoz parents last August in their Jerusalem apartment and the subsequent arrest of their son Daniel, who was charged with the double murder.

The state alleged Maoz killed his parents in order to use their inheritance money to pay off gambling debts he had at the time.

Maoz told the court of his long addiction to gambling and how in the past he faked a violent burglary at his parents’ home in order to steal money from them. He confessed to the deception a day later and returned the money, but remained in the grip of a gambling vice that saw him accumulating debts of hundreds of thousands of shekels.

During the trial Maoz told the court that he was bisexual and claimed that his brother had accused him of being a pedophile after alleging he found material on his computer, and that he subsequently lived in fear of his brother making the secret public.