Peru: New suspect arrested in Israeli murder case
Police in Arequipa take 33-year-old taxi driver into custody after finding incriminating evidence his possession linking him to rape, murder of Tamar Shahak
Local Peruvian authorities have arrested a new suspect in connection to the rape and murder of 22-year-old Tamar Shahak.
State penitentiary officials confirmed to Yedioth Aharonoth that police investigators had uncovered an olive-drab backpack seemingly identical to the one Shahak had been carrying in the possession of Manuel Alberto Chavez, a 33-year-old taxi driver from in the southern Peruvian city of Arequipa.
The contents of the backpack, a woman's sweater and undergarments, are currently being processed by the local crime lab to determine whether they belong to the victim.
A cursory examination of the clothes indicates they had not been manufactured in Peru.
Investigators say their suspicions grew when Chavez sought to alter the color of his yellow taxi cab to maroon nearly a fortnight ago, this despite the fact that the former is the mandatory color for taxis in the region.
Two other men have been detained in connection to the murder, one of them a known gang member - Angel Castillo Ramos (aka 'Chilano').
Shahak, a journalist, was found strangled to death in early May after having apparently been struck over the head with a blunt object and raped by more than one person, initial police reports said.
Peru's President, Alan Garcia, has demanded severe punishment for Shahak's assailants.
Garcia told reporters that he was moved by "the case of an Israeli journalist and soldier who was murdered because she dared to walk the streets of Arequipa alone."
