Twenty-five year old American girl raped in middle of afternoon in store at market; two suspects arrested.
By BEN HARTMANJaffa flea market(photo credit: REUTERS/Gil Cohen Magen)
A 25-year-old tourist from the US was sexually assaulted in the middle of the afternoon at a store in the Jaffa flea market this week, Yiftach subdistrict police said on Thursday.The woman came to the flea market on Monday afternoon – when it is typically full of visitors – and entered a store, where the owner brought her into a corner of the store and assaulted her, while threatening her, she told police. The man then brought her to the store next door, where he and a man working there sexually assaulted her, police said Thursday.The two suspects, a 38-yearold Ra’anana man and a 44- year-old man from Holon, were arrested on Wednesday.The remands of both men were extended by four days on Thursday by the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court. The Ra’anana man is reportedly a religious father of four, but both men’s identities are covered under a court-issued gag order.The attorney for the first suspect said that the act was consensual, and that he told him that after the alleged assault, the woman kissed him on the cheek and thanked him. The attorney also asked why, if it was a sexual assault, did she not cry out for help while being taken to the second store, which required walking past six other stores on a street full of shoppers.In court on Thursday, police said that the woman issued a police complaint the day after the sexual assault. She had spoken to relatives who live in Israel, who advised her on how to issue a complaint, they added.The arrests of the two suspects were made the same day that the Tel Aviv District Court sentenced Ahmed Bani- Jaber of Nablus to 30 years in prison for the brutal rape of a 17-year-old girl, whom he assaulted in front of her boyfriend in the Gan Ha’ir mall parking lot next to Tel Aviv City Hall in May 2012.
