"With no known motive": Released from prison - and murdered his grandfather's foreign caregiver
The State Attorney's Office filed an indictment against 31-year-old Eilat resident Aviad Zaken for the intentional murder of his grandfather's caregiver, just six days after his release from prison.
The State Attorney's Office filed an indictment this morning (Friday) at the Jerusalem District Court against Aviad Zaken, a 31-year-old resident of Eilat, for the intentional murder of Rajiv Acharya, an Indian citizen who served as his grandfather's nursing caregiver - just six days after he was released from prison following a long sentence he served for another violent incident. Along with the filing of the indictment, a request was submitted to extend his detention until the end of the proceedings.
According to the indictment, filed by Adv. Jenny Avni of the Jerusalem District Attorney's Office, about three weeks ago, on July 23, Zaken arrived at his grandparents' home in the Katamon neighborhood of Jerusalem to eat lunch with them. After the meal, the caregiver went into his room to rest, and a short time later Zaken entered the room - and during a conversation between them, he decided to kill him.
The indictment details how Zaken held a sharp and sharpened object, and stabbed the deceased in his neck with it, and also wounded him in the chest, ear, and nose, with the intent to cause his death. The deceased struggled with Zaken, screamed, and tried to protect himself, and when Zaken's grandmother asked from the living room what the source of the screams was, he falsely replied to her that the sounds were coming from the television. About a minute later, the deceased tried to escape towards the living room, where he collapsed and died shortly thereafter as a result of massive blood loss.
Immediately after the murder, Zaken falsely told his grandfather and grandmother that the deceased had committed suicide, and while the deceased was wallowing in his blood and fighting for his life, Zaken moved the rug on which he had fallen, and even moved the deceased so that his blood would not stain the rug. Later, he changed his shirt, washed his hands of the deceased's blood, and left the house, after kissing his grandfather and grandmother goodbye. Zaken took with him the blood-stained shirt and the object with which he had killed the deceased.
Adv. Jenny Avni of the Jerusalem District Attorney's Office stated:
"The deceased arrived in Israel to work as a caregiver for an elderly person, leaving his family behind. Precisely inside the house where he worked, a place where he was supposed to feel safe, he found his death in a violent manner, with no known motive. The act of murder took place in the middle of the day, in the home of Aviad Zaken's grandparents, who hosted him for lunch, almost before their eyes."
"Added to the severity of the act is Zaken's cold-blooded conduct immediately afterwards - the lies he told his grandfather and grandmother regarding the screams heard from the room, the false claim that the deceased had committed suicide, and then his calm departure from the apartment. This conduct illustrates in our eyes the chilling ease with which the deceased's life was taken and the severity of the act. We share in the heavy grief of the deceased's family, who lost their loved one after he traveled far from his home and family to work in Israel - and did not return to them."
Zaken was arrested shortly after the murder, and the investigation was conducted by the Central Unit of the Jerusalem District in the police. The head of the investigation team in the Central Unit, Chief Sergeant Yitzhak Dahan, said earlier this week: "This is a serious and difficult incident of violence against a foreign worker who cared for an elderly couple. From the moment we took responsibility for managing the investigation, we acted quickly and with all the tools at our disposal to collect evidence, reach the truth, and arrest the suspect. Thanks to the intensive and professional work of the unit's investigators, we have built a solid evidentiary infrastructure."
