Imad Khoury
November 5, 2007
Kiryat Yam, Israel

Haaretz.com
Israel
November 6, 2007

Taxi driver stabbed to death in Kiryat Yam
By Jack Khoury

A taxi driver was stabbed to death in Kiryat Yam yesterday after urinating in a park.

Police have arrested a homeless man who confessed to stabbing Imad Khoury and said he did so because the victim was an Arab. However, police dismissed this as a possible murder motive.

Jarais Khoury, Khoury's 7-year-old son sat in his grandmother's house in Haifa yesterday not quite understanding why people were coming in with tears in their eyes. Jarais is the youngest of three boys and a girl who became orphans yesterday.

"It's incomprehensible. In one second an entire family's world collapsed. They're trying to explain but there's no explaining it, the fact hat the suspect is a weirdo and a junky and is locked up doesn't make us feel any better," says Saliman Sadran, a relative of Khoury's.

He said Khoury was a devoted father and family man. "When I heard he was stabbed, I couldn't believe it. He is the last person you'd associate with violence."

"We were waiting for him for lunch and suddenly they told me he was gone," Khoury's wife said.

Khoury, 41, of Haifa, had left his taxi stand in Kiryat Yam to urinate in a public park nearby.

A 30-year-old homeless man suddenly appeared and reportedly started shouting at Khoury for urinating in the park. During the argument that ensued the assailant, who has a police record for violent behavior, stabbed Khoury and fled. Khoury managed to run about 20 meters before he collapsed on the road. He died on the way to the hospital.

Police captured the assailant soon afterward and believe the court will send him to psychiatric observation today.

Police sources said the suspect is known as a junky and was given a suspended sentence of six months in prison in 2003 for having attacked a policeman.

Both the police and the suspect's attorney dismissed the assumption that Khoury had been stabbed because he was an Arab. "The suspect said he did so because the Arabs have taken over the state, but this is clearly the ranting and raving of someone who can't be taken seriously," a police officer said.

Taxi drivers working on the Haifa-Kiryat Yam line said they had no toilet facilities at the taxi stand, which forced them to urinate in the public park. They said that this practice had aroused the neighbors' resentment.

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