The Killers of the 'Star of the Sector' Tried to Deceive Everyone. One Moment Doomed Them
A month after the murder of singer Shafiq Kabha in 2013, the case remained unsolved. The breakthrough came after a confrontation between two suspects who, fearing a more serious charge, confessed to their roles in the crime.
A month after singer Shafiq Kabha was shot to death as he left a wedding in Umm al-Fahm in 2013, the case was still far from being solved. The police had footage of a dark scooter following the car he was traveling in, glass shards found on the road, and partial testimonies from suspects who tried to distance themselves from the incident. No one saw the shooting itself, the weapon was not found, and the two riders on the scooter hid their faces. And then, on December 27, 2013, came the turning point. Two suspects in the murder, Amal Mahamid and Muhammad Mahamid, known as Abu Saad, were separated from each other after a tense confrontation. Each of them, without knowing what the other was saying at that moment, asked to return to the interrogation room and provide what he called the "version of the truth." From that day on, the murder case began to be built, which led, after nine years of trial and another appeal process, to the conviction of Khaled Jabarin for premeditated murder — and to a life sentence.
"It was a defining event," says attorney Anat Steinshneider, head of a department at the Haifa District Attorney's Office (Criminal), who managed the case. "If this development hadn't happened, I think that perhaps in the end an indictment would not have been filed." Kabha, a well-known and successful singer in Arab society who was called the "star of the sector," performed on the night of the murder, between October 22 and 23, 2013, at a wedding in an event hall in Umm al-Fahm. Shortly after midnight, with the end of his performance, he left the place in a car, sat in the passenger seat next to the driver, and another person traveled beside him. A scooter with two riders went out following the vehicle. According to the verdict, the two followed the car, waited on the side of the road, returned and drove after it, and at the police square in the city, they pulled up to its right side. From the back seat of the scooter, three or four bullets were fired from a short range. At least two of them hit Kabha and caused his death.
At the beginning of the investigation, the picture was far from clear. Following intelligence information, wiretap orders were issued against some of those involved, including Jabarin and Abu Saad. The intercepted conversations did not provide an immediate breakthrough, but they helped investigators identify the circle of people who were in contact with each other during the relevant period. "At first they were interrogated about involvement in the murder, but there wasn't too much," recalls attorney Steinshneider. "What the investigators had at first were mainly security cameras." The cameras themselves did not document the moment of the shooting, but they documented almost the entire route that led to it. Thus, cameras from the event hall area captured a dark scooter arriving at the place, and after the end of the event, the car in which Kabha was traveling was observed leaving the hall, and immediately after it the scooter. On other cameras, the scooter is seen following the car until close to the square where the murder was carried out. In the square itself, there was no camera, but on the road, glass shards were found that matched the car window that was shattered in the shooting. Police investigators collected documentation from many places throughout Umm al-Fahm. On one of the cameras, near the Suheib cafe, shortly after the murder, two people were seen dragging a scooter whose engine had died. In another documentation, from the area of Abu Saad's house, a person is seen leaving with a scooter before the murder and returning after it. At first, it was impossible to identify him with certainty, but later the documentation integrated with the other evidence. "The police did a great job there," says Steinshneider. "The cameras showed the scooter arriving at the hall, the vehicle leaving, and the scooter driving after it. Later, two people are seen dragging a scooter near the cafe. This was enough to arrest some of those involved, but we still didn't know who was driving and who shot."
One of the first figures who began to provide details was Ibrahim Al-Hadi, an associate of Jabarin. In conversations with an undercover agent, he said that the murder was carried out using a black scooter and a revolver, known in Arabic as "tahuni." Unlike a semi-automatic pistol, the casings remain in the drum and are not ejected at the scene. Al-Hadi also claimed that he saw the involved parties near the scooter after the murder and Amal holding a pistol. However, Al-Hadi's versions changed again and again. He asked to examine the possibility of becoming a state witness, but the investigators were impressed that he was not a direct partner in the execution of the murder and that some of his knowledge was obtained after the fact. The prosecution believed that his version was not enough to put him on trial for involvement in the murder, but his words led to the arrest of Amal, who was not previously considered a main suspect. "We couldn't build on his version alone," says Steinshneider. "He gave many versions that contradicted each other. It may be that he helped after the murder, but we didn't have sufficient evidence for that. On the other hand, some of the details he provided later received anchoring in other testimony."
Anchoring came, among other things, from Ibrahim Mahamid, who was called the "Japanese" and worked at the cafe. He said that after the murder he saw Amal in the cafe area, and later also noticed Abu Saad, Jabarin, and Al-Hadi gathering at the place. He did not see a pistol, but the very description of the meeting strengthened Al-Hadi's version that the involved parties met after the murder. Amal, as mentioned, was arrested following Al-Hadi's testimony, but even after his arrest, no immediate breakthrough was recorded. He sat with an undercover agent and gave changing versions. At a certain stage, he claimed that Jabarin and Abu Saad were the two scooter riders, and as a result, it was decided to conduct the confrontation between him and Abu Saad — the confrontation that brought the breakthrough in the investigation. In the confrontation, Amal refused to repeat in front of Abu Saad the accusation against him, according to which Abu Saad is the one who rode the motorcycle. The investigators separated the two and played for Abu Saad the recording of Amal's words, in which he accused him of riding the vehicle. According to the verdict, Abu Saad burst out at this stage in rage, claimed that Amal was lying, and asked to tell everything. At the same time, in another room, Amal also broke down and confessed: he himself was the driver, not Abu Saad. Jabarin sat behind him and shot. "Each of them separately said that he wanted to tell the truth," describes Steinshneider. "Abu Saad said that Khaled Jabarin approached him and asked for a scooter so that he and Amal could go and shoot at a person outside Umm al-Fahm, supposedly to scare him. Amal said: 'I can't lie, the one who was on the scooter is not Abu Saad, it's me. I was driving and Khaled shot.'"
The Supreme Court's verdict describes the moment of change as the "watershed" in the investigation. Judge Yosef Elron determined that after the confrontation, Amal abandoned his changing versions and persisted in one version, both in his interrogations, in the reconstruction he conducted, and in his testimony in court. Also, Abu Saad gave a detailed version immediately after the confrontation, according to which Jabarin asked him for a scooter to "shoot at someone's car outside the village," and that he helped remove the license plates. The reconstruction that Amal conducted that same day was one of the most important moments in the investigation. He led the investigators to the cafe, to Jabarin's house, to the event hall, and to the point on the road where the bullets were fired. Although by the time of the reconstruction the glass shards had already been cleared, he pointed exactly to the place where they were found. Amal also knew other details that were not published: in which seat Kabha sat, how the scooter followed the car, from what distance the bullets were fired, what was the type of weapon, and how many shots were heard. He even said that at Jabarin's request, he turned on a strong light that blinded the car driver. The Supreme Court determined that the control he demonstrated in the material and marginal details, and the correspondence to the evidence from the scene and the testimonies of the car passengers, gave the reconstruction significant weight. And yet, the prosecution faced a troubling question: is Amal telling the truth when he presents himself as the driver, or is he minimizing his part and casting the shooting on Jabarin to avoid conviction for murder? "This was the question I asked myself all the time," shares attorney Steinshneider. "If he understands that it is already known that he was on the scooter, he will prefer to say that he played the less serious role. We knew that this was a case that relied to a large extent on the credibility of witnesses, and you don't know in advance how the court will be impressed." The difficulty sharpened when Abu Saad retracted a significant part of his words in court and was declared a hostile witness. The prosecution asked the court to accept his confessions in the police, and especially the version he gave on December 27. Amal, by contrast, stuck to his version both in his own trial, and when he testified in Jabarin's trial. "We didn't know what Amal would say when he went up to the stand," says Steinshneider. "Will he be afraid of Jabarin, will he want to help him, or will he change the version. In the end, he gave in court what he gave in the police and in his trial. From my point of view, this was the most important testimony in the case."
The defense claimed that the witnesses' statements were obtained following humiliating treatment and improper pressure from the investigators. The courts did not ignore the claims. Regarding some of the interrogations, it was determined that the investigators used inappropriate and even humiliating language. However, it was determined that it was not proven that this conduct was what caused Amal and Abu Saad to give the incriminating versions. "I don't give such conduct justification or a stamp of approval, it is not proper," emphasizes Steinshneider, "but during this conduct they did not confess, but continued to deny. The confessions came much later, following the confrontation and the realization that the evidence was closing in on them. The question is always what caused a person to give the version. Our impression was that they were telling the truth because each feared that he would be accused of something more serious than what he performed."
Opposite the witnesses and developments stood Jabarin's sweeping denial: he claimed that he was not connected to the murder, that he did not remember where he was in significant parts of that day, and that all he remembered was that he went to vote in the local elections in the city. When confronted with the evidence and the incriminating versions, he did not provide an alternative explanation. However, as emerged from the verdict, an investigation exercise in which Jabarin and Abu Saad were seated together in a police vehicle, without knowing that their conversation was being recorded, presented a different picture. Jabarin boasted that he was making a "mockery" of the investigators and told how he kept answering that he "does not remember." When Abu Saad said he wanted to tell the truth, Jabarin asked him again and again what he said in the interrogation and urged him not to mention the deletion of the security videos. The court determined that these things teach that his evasive answers were an attempt to mislead the investigators.
One of the difficulties in the case was the question of motive. According to the indictment, members of Jabarin's family were angry at singer Shafiq Kabha after he did not arrive at a family event to which he was invited. A witness told the police about threats that Jabarin's father made against the successful singer. However, the court determined that a direct connection between the family anger and Jabarin's decision to murder Kabha was not proven, and therefore the motive was not proven to a degree sufficient for a criminal determination. Steinshneider does not believe that this significantly weakened the case. "Motive is not one of the components of the murder offense," she explains. "Sometimes there is evidence that a person caused the death of another person, even without knowing for sure why. Here we proved that there was great anger in the family at the deceased. It was not proven that Khaled's father told him to do this or that, and we don't know if such a conversation took place. But the anger existed."
The process against those involved was split into two trials. Amal and Abu Saad were judged together, while Jabarin was judged separately, because the two gave statements that incriminated him. Amal Mahamid was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 14 years in prison after it was determined that he drove the scooter but did not know in advance that Jabarin intended to kill Kabha. Abu Saad was convicted of aiding manslaughter due to providing the scooter and sentenced to three years in prison. In Jabarin's case, a plea bargain was considered at a certain stage, according to which he would be convicted of manslaughter and serve a sentence of 14 years in prison. The Kabha family petitioned the High Court of Justice against the arrangement, but the petition was rejected after it was determined that the prosecution's decision was reasonable considering the evidentiary difficulties. In the end, it was Jabarin himself who refused the arrangement and asked to continue managing the trial. "We were ready to consider the arrangement because we didn't know if the court would determine that Jabarin was the driver or the shooter," says Steinshneider. "If it had been determined that he was the driver and it could not be proven that he intended to murder, the result could have been similar to that of Amal. This was a way to avoid the risk of acquittal. But the arrangement did not come to fruition, and the case was managed to the end."
The trial lasted about nine years and included 113 sessions. It was conducted in two separate panels, included hostile witnesses, undercover agents, wiretaps, security cameras, communication studies, and questions of admissibility and credibility. The coronavirus pandemic also delayed the end of the process. In January 2023, the District Court in Haifa convicted Jabarin of premeditated murder, conspiracy, and possession and carrying of a weapon. He was sentenced to a mandatory life sentence and was required to pay the Kabha family compensation in the amount of 150,000 shekels. In his appeal, he claimed, among other things, that the witnesses lied, that the state changed its version when it pointed to him as the shooter, and that his conviction contradicts Amal's conviction for manslaughter. The Supreme Court rejected his claims. It determined that the verdicts do not contradict but complement each other: Amal drove the scooter and did not know about the intention to kill, while Jabarin was the shooter and acted with premeditation. The Supreme Court emphasized that Amal's version was supported by security cameras, the reconstruction, hidden details, and other testimonies, and that Jabarin's lies added to the fabric of evidence against him.
"It was a school for managing a criminal case," concludes Steinshneider. "To manage a case in two panels, to deal with the fear of speaking in two voices, with hostile witnesses, undercover agents, and a plea bargain that reached the High Court of Justice. Everything was there. Whoever would have accompanied the case for 10 years would have learned a lot from it." When Steinshneider is asked what remains with her from the case, she does not talk about the legal achievement or the rejection of the appeal. "Sadness," she replies, "deep sadness for the unnecessary death of this singer. I understood that in Arab society they called him the 'Shlomo Artzi of the sector.' Both then and today, the unbearable lightness of murder is not grasped by me. With the rising violence in Arab society, it only sharpens more and more. Beyond the learning and the not-simple management, the enormous pain of the family, with whom I was in contact throughout the years, remains with me. It is still very, very sad to this day."
