Police: Driver who killed cyclists had lost license, hid drugs rather than help
Court hears that Yonatan Fadida had traces of drugs in blood after fatal accident and threw bag of cannabis into ditch instead of assisting victims; remand extended by six days
The driver who killed two cyclists in a traffic accident did not have a valid license and threw a bag containing drugs from his vehicle after the crash, police told a remand hearing Thursday.
The Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court extended by six days the arrest of Yonatan Fadida, 29, from Or Akiva who is suspected of killing the cyclists Monday near the Hadarim interchange, south of Netanya.
He is suspected of reckless manslaughter, reckless driving, driving at a speed not suitable for the road conditions, and driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
The victims were Yaniv Lugasi, 44, and Tomer Weinstein, 45, both from the nearby community of Kadima-Zoran. Each of them was a father of three.
Fadida sustained minor injuries in the crash and received medical treatment at the scene.
Police said at the hearing that traces of drugs were found in Fadida’s blood and urine after the accident but that the circumstances of when he ingested them were not yet clear. A bag he allegedly threw from his car after the collision apparently contained cannabis, police said.
Judge Erez Melamed said Fadida was driving at high speed as though “on a racing track” and that there is a suspicion he tried to hide evidence.
Court papers show that “the suspect was driving with the cannabis drug in his body and instead of assisting the cyclists, the suspect chose to throw a bag of drugs into the roadside ditch,” Melamed said.
After the hearing Fadida’s mother Marcel told media she was devastated and wished she had died in place of the two men.
“It hurts me a lot what my son is doing, and the death of the two cyclists hurts me a lot,” she said.
At a previous remand hearing a traffic police representative told the judge that in addition to the suspicion that Fadida had been under the influence, he was exceeding the speed limit, and the cyclists had been adhering to traffic rules.
Fadida, in his reenactment of the incident, said he had been on his way to his job at a restaurant when he lost control of the vehicle at a curve. “I tried to brake, I tried to steer away from the cyclists but unfortunately I couldn’t,” he said, denying he had been distracted by his phone.
Fadida’s father Albert was questioned Wednesday by police on suspicion of obstructing justice after he apparently passed a message to his son when the two embraced during an earlier remand hearing, Channel 13 reported. The father was later released to house arrest.
The Times of Israel Community.