Israeli in Murder Case Gets Prison Term as Illegal Alien

A 32-year-old Israeli national, deported after serving a California prison term for his role in the 1979 dismemberment murders at the Bonaventure Hotel, was sentenced in Los Angeles to six months in federal prison for illegally returning to the United States.

U.S. District Judge Terry Hatter Jr. imposed the sentence on Eliahu Komerchero, who used the last name Cnaan to obtain a visa for his return to this country last year.

He is facing deportation again, but that issue will not be decided until the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service holds a hearing on his case.

In asking Hatter not to impose the two-year maximum sentence, defense attorney Raul Ayala disputed law enforcement and news media references to Komerchero as a member of the so-called Israeli Mafia.

Manslaughter Plea

Komerchero pleaded guilty to a voluntary manslaughter charge and testified as a prosecution witness in the trial that led to the conviction of Joseph Zakaria, now 38, and Jehuda Avital, now 31, for the grisly, Oct. 7, 1979, murders of a North Hollywood couple, Eli and Esther Ruven.

In his trial testimony, Komerchero told how the victims were shot with a silencer-equipped .22-caliber pistol in a room at the downtown luxury hotel. Their bodies were then dismembered and packed into suitcases, which were later thrown into trash dumpsters in Van Nuys and Sherman Oaks, he testified.

Komerchero originally had been charged with murder but was allowed to plead guilty to the lesser charge in exchange for his testimony against Zakaria and Avital. He served two years of his four-year state prison term before being deported in September, 1983.

Drug Inquiry

He came to the attention of Los Angeles area authorities last September during a drug investigation. Even though he was acquitted of cocaine possession charges in that state case, federal authorities took him into custody on the separate charge of illegally re-entering the country.

Before imposing the six-month sentence on Komerchero, Hatter said, “It is hard for me to believe your claim that you did not know that you were illegally entering the country, but I think your purpose was to be reunited with your family here, not any criminal intention.”