Shushan Baraby Suspect in fatal Netanya hit-and-run denies he was driving car

      Shushan Baraby appearing in court Tuesday. (photo credit: Yossi Zeliger/Flash90)

The suspect in a Friday night hit-and-run that left three women dead appeared in court Tuesday for a remand hearing, a day after he was found hiding following a three-day manhunt.

Baraby denied all the allegations against him. “The police know it’s not me,” he told reporters at the entrance to the Petah Tikvah court.

Police asked the judges to keep Shushan Baraby, 35, in custody for at least the next 13 days.

Four people suspected of involvement in Baraby’s attempted escape have also been arrested.

On Friday night, three women from the same family were killed in Netanya while crossing a street, when a car struck them at 100 kilometers an hour, police said.

Baraby, who had been on the run since the incident, was tracked down to a storage room in Netanya’s industrial zone on Monday, apparently on information obtained from a relative questioned earlier in the day. He had moved from one hiding place to another during the day, and injured his hand in a fall when trying to flee approaching cops. Some 50 police officers closed in on the suspect, and made the arrest.

Baraby told the court he ran from police because he was “afraid of the families.”

He said he shared in the victims’ relatives pain. “They should know no more sorrow,” he said.

According to Army Radio Baraby did not speak to the police during his night in custody, but police officials said they had enough evidence to charge him even without his testimony.

His attorney, David Yiftah, who said he spoke with his client briefly, declared that Baraby “was not driving the car at the time of the accident.”

A family member said he hoped the trial would be fair. Baraby’s innocence would come to light, he said, as long as he is judged on the facts and not the news reports, he said.

Three of Baraby’s relatives, as well as the owner of the factory in which Baraby was found hiding on Monday, were arrested. Police said more arrests were possible.

Police said Baraby’s wife, Nitza, who was pregnant with their third child and had called on her husband to turn himself in, wasn’t a suspect in the case.

Baraby served three prison sentences for various drug and violence-related offenses.

Police sources said Sunday they believed that Baraby picked up his wife after the hit-and-run, and that they went into hiding together. The couple’s children, who were with their mother at the time, were sent to a separate secret location, they said.

But Nitza Baraby’s lawyer said earlier Monday she did not know his whereabouts. Now in the 39th week of her pregnancy, she was hospitalized at Laniado Hospital.

Police revealed on Sunday that forensic evidence at the scene of the crime indicated that the driver of the car, presumably Baraby, was drunk at the time of the accident.

Netanya Mayor Miriam Feirberg, who knows the career criminal personally, said Sunday Baraby had “a good heart” and “a positive spark.”

“You didn’t mean to hit these people and kill them, but it happened,” Feirberg said Sunday. “Come, turn yourself in as soon as possible. You are just making things harder on yourself.”

Ynet news reported that Baraby allegedly threatened Feirberg’s life in the past. Some time after that he received a piece of public land slated for urban renewal.

According to the report, Baraby ran a watermelon stand on that piece of land 10 years ago, but the city refused to give him a permit for it and tore down the stand. After allegedly threatening Feirberg’s life, he received a permit to use the land to sell watermelons, and in the course of time converted the stand into a small market, lottery point and barbecue joint, despite not having a permit for those businesses.

An associate of Baraby’s Yohai Glicksman, 26, who police said was a passenger in the car that hit the pedestrians, was ordered by the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court on Sunday to remain in custody for five days for fear he would disrupt the investigation. Glicksman turned himself into the police shortly after the crash, claiming to be the driver, but later revoked his statement, saying he was sleeping at home at the time of the accident.

Glicksman’s wife told Army Radio that her husband left their bed in the middle of the night and told her he had to help out a friend. She said she heard Baraby speaking to him. The next time she saw him, she said, was in the courtroom during his remand hearing.

Baraby’s sister said on Sunday in a telephone interview with Channel 10 that she has not heard from her brother since the incident. She expressed her deep sympathy and condolences to the family of the victims, and called on Baraby to turn himself in.

Defending her brother’s character, Baraby’s sister said that “he is a very good man… the things he does for people, and for the needy, nobody knows about. He does it all secretly.”

The three women who were killed Friday evening were all members of a single family: Alexandra Rubinov, 67, of Netanya, and Svetlana and Shoshana Yegudiev, 56 and 25 respectively, a mother and daughter who were residents of Dimona visiting their relative in Netanya for the weekend. All three victims were buried in their respective hometowns on Sunday afternoon.