Court convicts Internet seductress of manslaughter


JPost.com Staff Oct. 21, 2003


The Ofer Military court on Tuesday convicted the
24-year-old Palestinian woman who lured Israeli
teenager Ofir Rahum to his death by chatting to
him on the Internet, with voluntary manslaughter.

Amani Mona, of Bir Naballah, who lured Ofir Rahum,
16, of Ashkelon, to his death in Ramallah, will be
sentenced at a later date.

The Israel Police special Computer Crimes Squad
carried out computer forensics on Rahum´s
computer, reconstructed old files through data
recovery and helped track down Mona and pin her to
the crime.

Israeli security forces arrested Mona in early
2001 after Rahum´s bullet-riddled body was found
on a West Bank road.

Mona frequented Internet cafes in the Ramallah
area and struck up conversations over the Internet
with Israelis and others using ICQ, identifying
herself as Sali.

It was during this period she introduced herself
to Rahum, telling him her father was Moroccan and
her mother Israeli and that she had arrived a year
earlier from Morocco. All the chats between the
two were in English. After a number of
conversations she informed her friend, Fatah
activist Hassan Kadi, of her link with Rahum.

A scheduled first meeting between the two fell
through, when Rahum informed her he was unable to
travel to Jerusalem and she turned down Rahum´s
suggestion that they meet in Ashkelon.

In the week prior to Rahum´s murder, Mona pressed
him to meet her in Jerusalem, where she said the
two could have intimate relations in her
girlfriend´s apartment. She warned Rahum not to
inform his parents, saying she would ensure that
he would return home at his usual hour.

On January 17, the two agreed to meet at
Jerusalem´s central bus station. She had
previously arranged with Kadi where near Ramallah
they would meet and confirmed he had organized a
hiding place and getaway car.

She met Rahum at the bus station and they got a
taxi to her car at the A-Ram junction north of the
city.

She drove him toward Ramallah, stopping at the
site she had previously arranged with Kadi.
Shortly after he arrived, armed with a
Kalashnikov, Kadi ordered Rahum to get out of the
car and when he refused, shot him.

He and accomplice Fatah Doola placed Rahum´s body
in the trunk of their car and drove off. Mona
followed them in her car and drove to the Fatah
office in El-Bira, parking her car a distance away
because of the bloodstains on it. She then met a
girlfriend for lunch, visited an aunt in the
hospital, and attended a defensive driving course
in Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, Kadi gave the vehicle to a third party,
who buried Rahum´s body.

Mona was arrested three days later, and Rahum´s
body was returned to Israel as a result of the
intensive actions of Israeli security officials,
who investigated his disappearance and demanded
that the Palestinians hand the body over to them.

(With Margot Dudkevitch)



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