Police arrest five suspects, including the brother of 19-year-old Hanan al-Bakhiri, who has been missing for 20 days, on suspicion of kidnapping and murdering her; although her body was not found, a police representative says police certain she is dead; Al-Bakhiri is alleged to be a victim of honor killing.
Police suspect that Hanan al-Bakhiri, 19, who has been missing for 20 days, was kidnapped and murdered in an honor killing. Police arrested several suspects from the young woman’s family.
The Be’er Sheva Court extended the remand of several involved in the affair on Tuesday, including Anwar, 33, the eldest brother of al-Bakhiri.
The investigation is conducted by the town police. Although no body was found, the police representative said at the hearing that the police knew for certain that Hanan is dead and how she had been murdered.
“This is a sensitive case,” a police representative said. “All the evidence gathered so far indicates that the woman is not alive, we know with absolute certainty that she is not alive.” The mother of the missing woman testified that she suspected her daughter had been murdered. In their interrogation, the suspects denied the allegations.
At the beginning of the month, around midnight, Hanan returned to her home in Lakiya and has since disappeared. Many police forces began searching for the missing woman earlier this month, but without any success. The police collected testimonies from some members of her family, but did not arrest anyone at the beginning. But with the passage of time, they began to suspect that this was not an ordinary case but a murder.
The suspect’s attorney said: “This is a young man without a criminal record who works in an orderly fashion. This is the beginning of an investigation. Let us hope that the police will quickly clarify the suspicions. My client denies the suspicions attributed to him and I hope that in the end, he will be found not guilty.”
As reported by Ynetnews