Roman Zdorov[b], a Ukrainian national residing in Israel and working at the school as a floorer, was convicted of the murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment on September 14, 2010.
His prosecution and conviction have been a source of controversy, receiving much media coverage, as well as being the focus of an Israeli documentary TV series called Shadow of Truth that has gained worldwide attention on Netflix.
That evening around 7 p.m., she was found murdered in a locked stall in the girls' bathroom—her throat slit twice and multiple additional cuts to her face, torso, and hands.
[4][failed verification] Initially, the Israel Police leaked to the press that DNA samples from the crime scene were matched with Zdorov's.
[9] A shoe-print police expert by the name Yaron Shor claimed to have found additional bloody footprints on Tair Rada's jeans that matched Zdorov's Salamander shoes.
The Nazareth District Court rejected the testimony of the defense expert about the kind of knife used in the murder, and called the assertion that it was not possible to identify the bloody shoe print "embarrassing and fundamentally flawed.
It was a tragic, small-town murder that, from the beginning, was dogged by rumors, including that local teenagers had killed Rada and the town or teachers had covered it up, finding an easy fall guy in Zdorov, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union.
In his final ruling as a Supreme Court justice, Hanan Melcer said that based on the evidence presented by his attorneys, there was sufficient reasonable doubt to exonerate Zdorov.
[22] By September 2014, Presiding Judge Yitzhak Cohen of the Nazareth District Court, who twice convicted Zdorov, left on vacation, and by November 2014 he resigned, after police recommended his prosecution for sexual harassment of a female attorney in his chambers.
In parallel, Justice Minister Livni ordered a probe to determine whether Moshe Lador and other highly placed figures attempted to cover up to the sexual harassment.
[23][24] Media later reported that Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein instructed Commissioner of Prosecutorial Oversight Judge (ret) Hila Gerstel to stop the cover-up investigation.
[citation needed] Regarding the Zdorov affair, Law Professor Mordechai Kremnitzer wrote in October 2014: "Conduct of the prosecution is scary... the State Prosecution is not seeking the truth... the justice system is mostly busy protecting itself..."[25] His comments were published in the wake of the Tel-Aviv Labor Court judgment in the lawsuit of senior forensic medical expert Dr. Maya Forman against the State of Israel, Ministry of Health and others.
Her case became an entirely separate scandal, which was described by Israeli media as persecution, settlement of accounts, and a retaliation campaign by Chief State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan against Dr. Forman for her professional, honest, expert testimony in the Zdorov affair.
In its February 2014 supplemental judgment the Nazareth District Court not only rejected Dr. Forman's expert testimony, but also heavily criticized her professional conduct.
[citation needed] The labor dispute became a scandal in its own sake, with the Israeli Medical Association joining as a friend of the court, strongly supporting Dr. Forman.
Moreover, while the Israeli Ministry of Health was named Defendant in the labor dispute, Minister of Health Yael German wrote a public letter to the Attorney General, stating that his conduct against Dr. Forman "lacks legal foundation and carries overarching and dangerous implications... blatant violation of Human Rights, the fundamentals of law and justice..."[citation needed] The case in the Tel-Aviv Labor Court then generated another separate scandal, when the State Prosecution tried to solicit an affidavit in support of its position from another senior forensic medical expert in the State Forensic Institute, Dr. Hen Kugel.
Dr. Kugel provided the State Prosecution a curve-ball affidavit, which for the first time disclosed that he also supported Dr. Forman's professional opinion that the murder was committed using a serrated knife.
The Dr. Forman and Dr. Kugel scandals expanded into a heated debate over integrity, lack of accountability for wrongdoing, and resistance of the State Prosecution to any civilian oversight.
[31][32][33] In December 2015, Commissioner of Prosecutorial Oversight, Judge (ret) Hila Gerstel, issued a report, effectively finding that the State Prosecution engaged in tampering with witnesses and perverting/obstruction of justice.
[citation needed] Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein issued an opinion supporting the State's right to change officials' affidavits.
However, in late March 2016, 11 senior prosecutors filed a petition with the Supreme Court, asking to prohibit the publication of the report, claiming that it would "damage their reputation".
On April 18, 2016, facing the State Prosecutors' strike and the petition, and realizing that she had no sufficient backing from Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, Commissioner Gerstel resigned.
[39] In an early June 2016 appearance before the Knesset's Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee in a hearing regarding the future of the Commissioner of Prosecutorial Oversight, and referring also to Attorney General Mandelblit's blocking of the Israel Bar Association review of conduct of senior State Prosecutors, relative to the attempt to pervert Dr. Kugel's affidavit, senior law professor and former Justice Minister Daniel Friedman stated in a June 2016 "The Attorney General cannot gag the entire State, and not let anybody voice an opinion".
[citation needed] In December 2015 demonstrations were held in Tel-Aviv central square in support of justice for Roman Zdorov and renewed investigation of Tair Rada's murder.
According to Uvda journalist Omri Essenheim, a policeman had appeared in their editorial offices and demanded to obtain any materials that had been collected as part of their investigative journalism work relative to conduct of the State Forensic Institute.
"[45] In early 2016, a four-part documentary TV series was aired in Israel, called Shadow of Truth, reviewing the Tair Rada murder/Roman Zdorov conviction affair.
[46] The fourth episode revealed a never-heard-before testimony of a man (referred to in the series as A.H.), who told the police in 2012 that his ex-girlfriend had confessed to him on the day of the murder, and even showed him a knife and clothes soaked in blood.
[47] The Israeli State Attorney, Supreme Court and Justice Ministry have all rejected A.H. claims and found his testimony to be unrealiable and "an attempt to frame his former lover".