Court charges Bedouin youth with brutal murder of Yuvalim teen
Prosecution alleges youth killed Ma'ayan Ben-Horin after she fought off his attempt to rape her.
By Jack KhouryA 17-year-old Bedouin youth was charged at Haifa District Court on Wednesday with the murder of 18-year-old Yuvalim resident Ma'ayan Ben-Horin, whose body was found on January 9 between Yodfat and Hararit, two days after she was last seen.
The prosecution alleges the teen murdered the high school student after trying to rape her.
The gag order on the details of the investigation as well as the boy's arrest was lifted Tuesday night, following a request by Haaretz.
The investigation found that Ben-Horin was on her way to a job interview at a local farm, arrived at the dirt trail that leads to the farm by hitchhiking and proceeded from there on foot. She is believed to have encountered the suspect along the trail. The boy lives nearby with his family and often wanders the area as a shepherd.
The boy is suspected of assaulting Ben-Horin with the intention of raping her, but she fought back and a struggle developed. He allegedly killed Ben-Horin with a rock, hid her body and left the scene.
The commander of the special Police Northern District unit tasked with the investigation, Commander Menachem Hever, told Haaretz that when Ben-Horin's body was found, police searched the area and discovered biological evidence from which a DNA sample was taken. Hever stressed that the autopsy and lab tests proved that Ben-Horin was not raped.
According to Hever, police began searching for potential suspects, focusing initially on people who are often seen in the area, including local Bedouin families and shepherds as well as the farm's employees.
In the course of the investigation, over 100 people were questioned, of which roughly 60 provided DNA samples and underwent a polygraph test. The DNA suspect taken from the suspect matched the sample found on Ben-Horin's body, which was the break in the case police were looking for.
On February 2, the suspect was arrested and handed over to Shin Bet questioning, and after the possibility the murder was politically motivated was ruled out, was handed back over to the special Northern District police unit.
The youth originally denied any connection to the incident, but during questioning eventually claimed his dog had chased Ben-Horin, and that he threw a rock in order to scare off the dog but accidentally hit the girl. Despite the partial confession, the boy reenacted the events for investigators.
Police and prosecution sources say the boy's claims are baseless, given evidence found at the scene, the signs of violence on Ben-Horin's body which prove intent to kill, and the DNA evidence that eliminates any doubt as to the identity of the murderer.
It should be noted that the Ben-Horin family received updates throughout the investigation, and has issued a statement saying they do not intend to comment publicly on the matter. The family has also asked newspapers to respect their privacy, and refrain from publishing the more gruesome details of the case.
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Relatives of slain teen Ma'ayan Ben-Horin watching as her suspected killer is charged in a Haifa court Wednesday. (Doron Golan / BauBau) |
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For my gentle Jewish critics I have an idea. Pretend you open, say, a British paper today. The headline states: "Jew suspected of selling peerage". No, I'm not making that up. Lord Levy is being investigated for sale of lordly titles. What would your reaction be? I can just imagine! "Oh those *** Brits! Antisemites! Arab-lovers! What does it matter if he's Jewish? He's a human being like everyone else!" And that's my final comment on this issue.
All Haaretz did was describe the perpetrator without giving away his name. Get a life.
Ahmed condemns Dani for living on land that the Arabs claim. Jews have at least historical, religious and cultural ties to the region. Ahmed lives in Dearborn, USA, on land occupied by non-aboriginals. Neither Europeans or Middle Easterners or their descendants, like himself, have any historical, religious or cultural ties to Dearborn. Ahmed has no problem when he is the occupier. Moral schizophrenia or hypocrisy?
to investigate they HAVE to know certain things, like color of skin, hair, eyes. Just a thought, not a criticism. I di see your point now though. why worry about mentioning his background, takes from the deed itself.
I would wager you are in your twenties and attending university, don't get taken away with your seemingly new found intellectual prowess, it will not serve you well.
It reflects badly on all youths ,even if the "Beduin" was omitted ,doesn't it? You "humanists" swoon over "poor exploited",but was this poor girl which was exploited and murdered by a scum,on defense of whom you concentrate so much.
Lynn, I'm neither forensic pathologist nor insurance assessor, so it doesn't concern me if the car was a VW 123 or a Mercedes 456, or if the victim was wearing Levis and size X running shoes or Jordaches and size Y saddle shoes. That's all "human interest" for readers with morbid, inhuman interest. Ahmed, you may consider Tel Aviv occupied territory, too, for all I know. My living in Givat Zeev is as irrelevant as your living in Dearborn MI, home of the notorious antisemitic rag the Dearborn Independent. Dror, I'm certainly not politically correct. I like good style and dislike messy thinking.
did you notice ahmed's post???? u cannot win with political correctness, it is counterproductive. the male sex drive is what it is, it can be animalistic, wild, and violent regardless of being bedouin,ethiopian,eshkenazi,mizrachi,etc.etc.
I appreciated Dani Reiss's comments, until I noted where she lives - Givat Ze'ev. Palestinian land occupied by Israel in 1967. Therefore Dani is a settler and therefore her concern is just a show of crocodile tears.
So, how would one describe their attacker if unable to use the description? Or the car at at the scene of an accident? How goofy you are.
The implication is that his being Bedouin is intrinsic to the murder. Because he's an Arab he attacked a Jew, or because he's a dark male he attacked a white girl, or because he's Bedouin he shouldn't have been in Haifa, or something like that. This was the case with the Ethiopian who raped and killed a girl in Rehovot not long ago. The emphasis was on his being Ethiopian, not on his being a known criminal psychotic who should not have been unsupervised on home leave, or on home leave at all. Likewise, when a traffic accident is reported involving a model XYZ, the implication is that that model is unsafe on the open road.
How would you have him be described? just as a youth? to conceal the fact that he is bedouin? in the name of political correctness?? you are wrong. This is a reminder to us, women everywhere in the world can be targeted for rape at any opportune moment, it is the animal nature of potential rapists that should be honestly realized, women should take precautions for themselves to stay alive and to keep from being raped. Learn to use weapons or don't travel alone, as simple as that.
The suspect may indeed be Bedouin, but identification as such, especially in a headline, is extremely offensive. It reminds me of a piece by the Jewish Czech writer Ota Pavel, where his father, an ardent Communist after liberation from the Nazis, is confronted with Stalinist show trials, with each defendant identified as "of Jewish origin".