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Photo:
The scene of the stabbing attack in Kiryat Ata, outside Ikea, October 14, 2015.Credit: Rami Shlush
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Court grants request for gag order on man’s identity, despite the naming of dozens of Arab assailants over the past week.

by Noa Shpigel for Haaretz

The Haifa Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday extended the detention of a Kiryat Ata man suspected of stabbing a Nahariya resident because he thought his victim was an Arab by eight days. Judge Orit Kantor placed a gag order on the man’s name and other identifiers, at the request of his attorney, Yosef Gimpel.

The names and photographs of Arab assailants have been released regularly over the past week.

Gimpel told the court he was requesting the gag order to protect the family, “because of the security situation today and the concern of the family over… some act of revenge.” Gimpel added that there was also doubt as to whether his client was psychologically fit to stand trial and asked that he be given a psychiatric examination, a request that Kantor also granted.

The suspect did not speak at the beginning of the hearing and did not respond to reporters’ questions. His attorney said that the man was upset and that it was hard to obtain details from him. “It is very hard to explain the event. I hope that in the coming days things will change,” he said.

The victim of the stabbing, Uriel Rezkin, was moderately injured. Rezkin works at the Shufersal supermarket in the Ikea complex in Haifa’s bayside area.

He recalled the attack on Tuesday morning, from his bed in Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center. He said he was unloading merchandise with another employee when he suddenly felt blows in his back and heard the assailant shout, “You deserve it. You’re Arab maniacs.”

“I shouted at him that I am Jewish, but he didn’t leave me alone,” Rezkin said, adding, “It doesn’t matter who stabs whom. People come to work, people work together, people don’t have the strength to bring politics into their lives.”