Australian police arrest man after death of Israeli student Aiia Maasarwe
- Aiia Maasarwe was raped and killed near a tram stop in Melbourne while she was talking to her sister on the phone
- Hundreds of people turned up dressed in black for a silent vigil outside the steps of Victorian state parliament
.png?itok=arIb17P0)
Police in Australia arrested a man on Friday for questioning over the death of an Israeli student in Melbourne.
Aiia Maasarwe was slain at about 12.10am on Wednesday shortly after she got off a tram in the suburb of Bundoora. Her body was found by passers-by several hours later.
A 20-year-old man was taken into custody on Friday morning in the neighbouring suburb of Greensborough. Police did not say if any charges have been filed.
‘Horrific attack’: Israeli student murdered in Australia while on phone with sister
The 21-year-old victim was studying at La Trobe University as an exchange student from Shanghai University in China.
Her father Saeed Maasarwe arrived in Melbourne on Thursday to bring her body home.
He wept on Friday when he saw an impromptu floral memorial arranged by members of the public at the site where her body was found behind a hedge not far from the tram stop.
“This is the last place my daughter ... was here,” the father told reporters. “I had many dreams to be with her.”
He said he was moved by the support from the community.
“I feel very, very sad from one side, but from another side, when I get this support and this help – from the people, from the community, from the police – it makes the suffering to feel a little more better,” he told reporters.
Maasarwe’s uncle, Abed Kittani, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp that she was speaking to a younger sister on the phone when she was attacked.
“She heard the cars passing by and she was helpless, she couldn’t do anything,” Kittani said of the sister. The sister sent messages, but there was no response. “Instead of coming home with a diploma, she is coming back in a coffin.”
Another uncle, Rame Maasarwe, said: “We cannot believe that something like this happened in Australia; we think it’s very safe there.”
Police have not detailed the attack on Maasarwe, which they assume was random and opportunistic.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison revealed she had been raped before her body was discarded.
“I just want to begin by saying how devastated I am by the despicable, tragic and violent killing and rape of Aiia Maasarwe,” Morrison told reporters in Fiji. “Every woman in Australia – every person in Australia – should be able to travel home in safety. I can’t begin to think of what I could say to her family.”
Hundreds of Australians dressed in black gathered in Melbourne on the steps of Victorian state parliament late on Friday for a silent vigil in memory of Maasarwe.
“It’s a sad reason that we are here today,” one man attending the vigil told Channel Seven TV news. “To sit and stand in anger for what has happened.”
A woman holding back tears at the event said: “It’s just so sad, she seemed like such a lovely girl.”
Campaigners have called for an end to the “epidemic of violence against women” in the city.
Some of the vigil organisers were the ones who had arranged a similar tribute for Eurydice Dixon, a 22-year-old local comedian who was killed in a Melbourne park last year as she was going home.
“We’re as angry as we were last time,” organiser Jessamy Gleeson told Melbourne’s Herald Sun on Friday.
“We shouldn’t have these one-off vigils. There needs to be continued engagement and conversation about violence against women.”
