Body of woman allegedly kidnapped, murdered by husband found

The body of Valentina Dombayev, 24, whose husband is in police custody on suspicion of kidnapping and murdering her, was found Wednesday morning near Ashdod.

Dombayev's body was hidden from sight, and forensics specialists are looking into the possibility that she was choked to death.

The victim's husband, Iyad Sami, 30, was arrested earlier this week despite the fact that his wife's body was still missing. Sami admitted to kidnapping his wife and her friend, but claimed that they managed to escape from his car on the way to Ashdod.

A Rishon Letzion court on Monday extended by nine days the remand of Sami, a resident of Ramallah in the West Bank.

Police suspect that Sami murdered Dombayev and disposed of her body.

On Friday evening, passersby saw an injured woman lying on the side of the road near Ashdod. She told those who stopped to help her that she had managed to free herself from a locked car trunk and asked for assistance to reach a police station.

She was taken to the Kiryat Gat police station, where she told police that she had been kidnapped, along with her friend, from the Holon area, and that the kidnapper was her friend's husband. The woman, who was bruised, said she did not know what happened to her friend.

After questioning, the police learned that the two women, Dombayev and the 20-year-old friend, both from Lod, had been driving on the Ayalon highway. When they reached the area of Holon, a vehicle blocked their path, and they saw Dombayev's husband and another man. The two told them to get in their car.

In the car the husband tied the 20-year-old woman's hands and locked her in the trunk. Dombayev was also pushed into the car and may have also been tied. As the car sped away, the woman in the trunk managed to free herself.

Near Ashdod, she succeeded in opening the trunk and threw herself outside, where she was later found by passersby.

The suspect says that when he noticed that his wife's friend had managed to open the trunk, he stopped to check it and at that point his wife managed to flee.

Later police learned that the couple may have been fighting over their 4-and-a-half-year-old son. During the weekend, detectives staked out the area where the child was staying (with a baby sitter), and saw his father come to collect him Sunday. The man was immediately arrested.

The Rishon Letzion judge who officiated the remand extension stated that he was convinced there were serious reasons to suspect that Sami carried out the crimes he is accused of, saying they are offenses "among the worst in the book of law."

	Valentina Dombayev (Israel Police)