Sex slave testifies against pimps,
kidnappers, rapists in Be'er Sheva
By Zvi Harel, Ha'aretz Legal
Correspondent
HA'ARETZ
Wednesday, August 2, 2000
A woman who was enslaved as a sex worker testified yesterday in Tel
Aviv District Court in the trial of nine defendants arrested on counts
of conspiracy to kidnap, kidnapping to perpetrate sexual offenses, false
imprisonment, and rape.
Yesterday's witness, a Ukrainian native, is one of four prostitutes
slated to testify in the trial.
The prosecution has made haste to bring these four women to the
witness stand, since they lack permits for residence in Israel and face
deportation.
The witness attested yesterday to wide-scale sale and enslavement of
sex workers. She said that she was intimidated by threats that she could
be sold to Arab pimps in the territories, for $17,000.
She explained that handlers in the territories exploit prostitutes
until they are "worn out" - the women don't last more than
three months, the witness said.
Yesterday's testimony related to the fourth count in the indictment,
which charges that on May 6th of this year, three of the defendants,
Rauf Shlomov, Eliezer Negdiman and Pa'sar Avdiev, conspired to kidnap
prostitutes.
The three men tried to shove the witness and a second woman into an
automobile outside of a hotel. Negdiman used a knife to force the
witness inside the car while the other woman escaped.
The then defendants took the woman to Be'er Sheva, and kept her
confined there.
Avdiev and another defendant are accused of sexually abusing the
women while she was kept imprisoned in the Negev capital.
The charge sheet charges that Boris Shposhnik, also a defendant in
the case, is alleged to have kept the victim jailed in his Be'er Sheva
home, while a $5,000 sale ensued to return the woman back to her
original pimp, outside of the Be'er Sheva region.
Cross-examination of the witness will continue today.