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Israel - Conspiracy to commit murder has been added to the allegations against Rabbi Elior Chen. The charges arose from the interrogation of one of the children of the abused Jerusalem mother, in which Chen, the central suspect in the abuse case, was said to be preparing to murder the children's father. In the document that child investigator Micah Haran sent to attorneys last week, it was revealed that the child personally described that Chen was prepared to kill his father and one of his brothers.

According to the child's testimony, a conversation was overheard between Chen and several of the saga's guilty parties, in the course of which Chen plotted an auto accident in which the father and one of the boy's younger brothers would die. The boy didn't know how to explain why they were apparently planning to kill his brother as well, but it seems that their goal was to cover their tracks, as the father's death alone would be bound to arouse suspicion. Tomorrow, the boy's testimony will be heard for the first time in Jerusalem's district court.

Joining the boy's testimony will be notebooks currently held by police in which Chen maintained what appears to be a diary of sorts. Chen asks himself questions in the notebooks, and replies to them at later occasions. In one, Chen replies to the question of when the father will die. At a later date, after the date by which Chen envisioned the father's death, Chen asked why it hadn't happened yet, and replied that the occasion was postponed.

"We are dealing with a false claim by a child with a unhealthy imagination," Ariel Etri, Elior Chen's attorney, tells Walla News. "The boy has been interrogated for several long hours a number of times, and never made this claim or any claim like it. It's clear to us that his father coached him to raise the claim at this time," according to Etri.

In the course of all this, the first hearing in the matter of Chen's incarceration in the Sao Paolo federal court house was heard yesterday [Friday, July 25—Ed.]. In the course of the hearing, a list of charges were read against him, all of which Chen denied. Attorney Etri allowed the local attorney hired to defend Chen to claim that Israel has no basis to request his incarceration.

"The State can request incarceration only with regards to violations that occurred in its sovereign territory," said Etri. According to the attorney, the suspicions attributed to Chen allegedly occurred in his Beitar home, and in the family's East Jerusalem apartment. "According to international law, these two places are not part of the State's sovereign territory," he said.

The abuse case began about four months ago. A police investigation revealed that Chen committed physical and emotional abuse against children with the help of his followers. According to evidence collected, Chen saw himself as a "rabbi" and spiritual-advice master, telling his faithful that the children were "corrupt souls" who needed "repairs" to "exorcise their demons."

With the saga's unfolding, Chen fled the country and hid in Brazil. His followers, Avraham Muskalchi, represented by attorneys Yehudah Shushan and Shimon Sharvit, as well as Dovid Kugman, represented by attorney Avigdor Feldman, were indicted for involvement in the abuse and were arrested several days after the case broke. Also arrested were Roi Tzoref and Shimon Gabai for the same allegations.

In one of the cases, an accused mother—together with Muskalchi, Kugman and Gabai—followed Chen's instructions to strike tots' heads with wooden clubs, burn limbs, use force, and lock in closets, as well as feed excrement to one of the woman's eight children.