TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 2024
Team Herald
PANJIM: Israeli national Yaniv Benaim alias Atala, whose video confession on drug mafia in the State exposed the police-politician-drug nexus way back in 2010, is set to walk out of jail in connection with another serious offence registered against him last year.
The High Court of Bombay at Goa had granted Atala conditional bail in an attempt to murder case, registered by Anjuna police in April 2019. Discrepancies in the investigation as well as in deposition of the assaulted complainant led to the foreigner’s release on conditional bail.
Atala has been in jail from May after his dramatic arrest by Uttarakhand Police after immigration officials apprehended him when he tried to sneak into Nepal via the border district in Champawat in Uttarakhand.
A team of Goa police thereafter brought him to Goa on transfer warrant.
In the 2019 assault case, which was registered under section 307 (attempted murder) of Indian Penal Code, the Anjuna police filed the chargesheet on August 22, 2019. In May 2020, his bail was rejected by the Additional Sessions Court after the prosecution raised apprehensions about his escape from the country.
Atala thereafter moved the High Court challenging the order wherein the defense led by Damodar Dhond and Swapnil Nasnodkar alleged that the complainant had not supported the case of the prosecution and was also declared a hostile witness.
The defense further argued that complainant in his statement to the police alleged that he was assaulted with a rod; however what was recovered was a wooden stick.
A knife was purportedly recovered at the instance of Atala but neither of the two weapons was shown to the injured.
The bench of Justice Nutan Sardessai observed that Atala has been in custody from the date of his arrest while pointing out to probe discrepancies. “… the outcome of the case is apparent when also there are material discrepancies in the manner in which, the investigation has been conducted in as much as in the statement of the complainant he was assaulted with a rod unlike the recovery of the wooden stick in the case. Though the knife purportedly used by the applicant was recovered at his instance, the recovery panchanama shows that it was duly packed and sealed without being shown to the injured and which also rules out the possibility of the identification of the knife by the complainant as being the weapon of assault. The stick in question too was not shown to the complainant during the course of his examination,” the bench said.
Furthermore, the court noted that there was also no singular dispute of the fact that panchanama of the scene of offence was drawn more than 15 days after the incident and Test Identification Parade was not held to identify Atala at the first available opportunity soon upon his arrest.
“All these factors point to the fact that a long drawn trial of the matter would not be in the interest of the applicant taking into consideration the current situation on account of the Corona Virus Pandemic. Besides, it is difficult to fathom how long the trial may proceed and progress before the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Mapusa,” she said while ordering release of the alleged accused.
As Atala is now free, the court has imposed conditions such as to not leave Goa and territorial waters of India without permission of the court, deposit passport with the trial court at Mapusa and to cooperate with the trial among others.
Atala was arrested by Goa Police in 2010 after his name surfaced in policemen-drug lord-politician nexus in the State. His girlfriend, Lucky Farmhouse, had recorded his video confession claiming that he has been supplying drugs which were confiscated by police during the raids.
The case against him was then investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation. More than one and half dozen police officials were arrested for their alleged links with Atala.
