ISRAEL: Police Say 2009 LGBT Center Shooting Was Revenge For Sexual Assault

Israeli police yesterday said that the 2009 shooting at Tel Aviv's LGBT teen center was motivated by an alleged sexual assault on the then 15 year-old relative of the alleged killer, Haagai Felician (above).  Both the alleged molestation victim and the accused gay activist deny that any assault took place. The attack left two dead and eleven injured. The subsequent manhunt and years-long investigation became one of the largest and most expensive in Israeli history.

The Times Of Israel reports:

On Tuesday, the court approved for publication the name of the prime suspect in the shooting, Haggai Felician, 23, and an accomplice, Tarlan Hankishayev, 26, both from the Pardes Katz neighborhood in Bnei Brak. Felician set out to kill the gay activist after he heard that a relative of his, who was 15 at the time, was sexually assaulted by him, police said. The court on Tuesday did not lift the gag order on the names of the intended target or the relative of the shooter.

Felician arrived at the club on the evening of August 1, 2009, thinking that the gay activist would be there, police said. However, despite discovering that the man wasn’t on the premises, he opened fire, killing counselor Nir Katz and 16-year-old Liz Trubeshi and wounding 11 others. The arrest of Felician and his suspected accomplices marked a breakthrough in a case that had police stumped for almost four years. Until their identity and motives were known, police treated the case as a possible hate crime or terror attack.

According to a Tel Aviv official, the break in the case came three months ago when one of the three accomplices called police from prison where he was serving time for an unrelated crime.  The accomplice turned informant is "himself member of the gay community and he felt pangs of guilt," according to the official.

Shai Deutsch, the head of the Israeli LGBT Association, says that he refuses to believe the molestation accusation against the intended victim of the attack. Deutsch: "We received dozens of letters from people he helped. How he could do what they say he did, when he saved many other youths from prostitution?"