At the request of Israel, Morocco extradited on Wednesday an Israeli fugitive who is wanted by Israeli police for his role in a bomb attack that killed three in Tel Aviv in 2003.
Golan Avitan who fled the country while under house arrest in 2018 got arrested on Wednesday, shortly after he arrived Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv.
Avitan was also a main suspect in Case 512, an organised criminal inquiry that Israeli security services launched in May 2015. The investigation led to the arrest of about 50 members of organised crime gangs in Israel for their links to cases of money laundering, conspiracy, drug trafficking, and murder.
Case 512 has been labeled “one of the largest underworld busts in Israel’s history,” according to the Times of Israel.
Security agents arrested Avitan for supplying the remote timers that set off the explosives used in the 2003 attack in a Tel Aviv building.
The main target of the bombing was Zev Rozenstein, a rival of the Abergil crime family. The incident left three dead and twenty people injured.
Avitan was charged with murder for his involvement in the plot, but he was eventually placed under house arrest after his lawyer managed to reduce his sentence.
Reports has it that Avitan escaped under the pretext of a dental appointment in 2018. He routed a yacht to Cyprus, Spain, and finally Morocco.
In October 2020, police representatives from Israel and Morocco agreed to organise the extradition of Avitan and Chiko (Moshe) Beit Adah, another Israeli fugitive.
The two countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on legal cooperation on July 27, 2022, in a bid to strengthen cooperation in the fight against crime and terrorism. The agreement is also expected to improve police coordination between both nations.